B  3  150  aa? 


Wit 


ADDRESS  AND  PROCEEDINGS 


at  tl)e  mutation 


OF 


rilF.   CRANE    MEMORIAL   HALL, 


QUINCY,    MASS. 


,r 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/addressofcharlesOOadamrich 


^1 


ADDRESS  AND  PROCEEDINGS 

^t  tijc   Dcti  I  cation 


OF 


THE   CRANE    MEMORIAL   HALL. 


a: 
O 


< 

o 


I- 


ADDRESS 


OF 


CHARLES    FRANCIS    ADAMS,    JR. 

AND 

Proccctimcjs  at  tlje  Dctiication 

OF 

THE    CRANE    MEMORIAL    HALL, 

AT    QUIA'CY,    MASS., 
May  30,   1882. 

with    heliotypes. 


CAMBRIDGE: 

JOHN    WILSON    AND    SON. 

ffilnibcTsitu  l)rcss. 

1883. 


21 /^i      ^ 


|B\^00*- 


l-i: 


is**. 


321308 


THOMAS     CRANE, 

Born  on  George's  Island,  in  Boston  Hari!or,  October  i8,  1803 ; 
Died  in  the  City  of  New  York,  April  i,  1875. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 


Addkess  by  Charles  F.  Adams,  Jr 3 

Note 2O 

Official  Letters  and  Action 29 

Dedication 32 

Procession 34 

Masonic  Services 35 

Consecrating  Prayer,  by   Rev.  Charles   H.  Leonard,  D.  D.  40 

Address,  by  Samuel  Crocker  Lawrence       42 

Exercises  in  the  Church 45 

Address,  by  Mr.  Ali-.ert  Crane 46 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 


The  Craxe  Memorial  Haix Froniispicce 

I'ORTRAIT    OF    THOMAS    CrANE V 

View  of  Interior  (north  end) 13 

\'iEw  of  Interior  (south  end) 24 

Tin:  .Mantel  and  Fireplace 29 


ADDRESS. 


Nearly  two  hundred  and  forty  years  ago,  in  the  early  days 
of  Massachusetts  and  before  Cromwell  was  yet  Lord  Protector, 
there  came  over  to  New  England,  among  many  others,  a  man 
named  Henry  Crane.  Little  is  known  of  him  except  that,  of 
English  blood,  he  settled  in  Dorchester,  and  was  the  father 
of  a  numerous  progeny.  Six  sons  have  perpetuated  his  name 
in  many  places  throughout  that  continent  which  their  common 
ancestor  helped  to  occupy.  The  fifth  of  these  six  sons  was  born 
on  the  tenth  of  August,  1665,  and  was  named  Ebenezer. 

In  November,  1689,  this  Ebenezer  Crane,  being  then  twenty- 
four  years  of  age,  married  Mary  Tolman,  a  daughter  of  Thomas 
Tolman  of  Dorchester,  and  five  years  younger  than  himself. 
The  Tolmans  were  always  prominent  in  the  annals  of  their 
town,  and  they  yet  live  upon  land  which  has  been  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  family  since  the  settlement  of  the  country.  For 
over  fifty  years  a  Tolman  was  town  clerk  of  Dorchester. 
Ebenezer  Crane,  however,  was  soon  separated  from  his  young 
wife  ;  for,  what  with  French  and  Indian  wars,  those  were 
troubled  times.  Married  in  November  1689,  in  August  1690 
his  name  is  found  in  the  muster-roll  of  a  company  of  soldiers, 
seventy-five  in  all,  who  were  enlisted  in  Milton  and  Dorches- 
ter, and  sent  out  as  part  of  the  unfortunate  Quebec  expedition 
of  1690,  under  command  of  Sir  William  Phip'T.  Of  the  two 
thousand  men  composing  the  land  force  of  that  expedition, 
only  about  two  hundred  were  lost,  but  of  those  two  hundred  no 
less  than  forty-six,  it  is  said,  belonged  to  the  Dorchester  com- 
pany. They  may  have  been  stricken  with  the  small-po.x,  or 
they  may  have  been  in  some  vessel  whieh  fDundered  at  sea,  but 


not  the  half  of  those  who  went  forth  ever  returned.  Ebcnezer 
Crane  was  among  the  more  fortunate  twenty-nine  who  found 
their  way  back,  and  presently  he  moved  over  to  the  North  Pre- 
cinct of  Braintree,  as  Ouincy  was  then  called.  His  death,  in 
1725,  is,  however,  recorded  in  Milton. 

Those  were  the  days  of  patriarchal  families.  His  father  had 
ten  children  ;  Ebenezer  Crane  had  twelve.  Tenth  among 
the  twelve,  and  sixth  among  eight  sons,  was  Thomas  Crane, 
who,  born  in  Braintree  in  17 10,  married  Deborah  Owen,  also  of 
Braintree,  or  Quincy  now,  in  1732.  He  was  twenty-two  and 
she  seventeen,  and  in  the  August  following  their  marriage, 
three  months  before  their  first  child  was  born,  they  were  both 
admitted  as  members  of  the  church  here,  the  Rev.  John  Han- 
cock, father  of  the  patriot  of  a  generation  later,  being  then  its 
pastor.  Thomas  and  Deborah  Crane  had  but  five  children,  the 
third  of  whom,  a  son,  was  born  on  the  i  ith  of  September,  1737, 
and  christened  Joseph.  Presently,  in  1757,  this  Joseph  Crane, 
being  then  twenty  years  of  age,  married  Polly  Savil,  who  was 
three  years  younger  than  himself ;  for  early  marriages,  as 
well  as  large  families,  were  then  in  vogue.  The  sixth  child 
of  this  couple  was  a  son,  whom  they  called  Thomas.  Born  in 
May,  1770,  the  second  Thomas  Crane,  in  November,  1796,  mar- 
ried Sarah  Baxter,  a  daughter  of  Daniel  and  Prudence  Baxter 
of  Quincy.  They  had  six  children.  The  third  of  the  six  was 
a  son,  born  on  the  iSth  of  October,  1803,  whom  they  named 
after  his  father  ;  and  it  is  to  the  memory  of  the  Thomas  Crane, 
thus  born,  third  of  the  name  and  fifth  in  direct  descent  from 
the  original  Henry  Crane,  that  this  structure  has  been  reared. 

There  is  one  thing  very  noticeable  in  tracing  through  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half  the  descent  of  a  genuine  New  England  family 
like  the  Cranes.  It  is  curious  to  see  how  pure  the  English 
blood  was  kept.  The  names  are  all  English  names, —  Henry 
and  Ebenezer  and  Joseph  and  Thomas.  The  mothers  — 
Marys  and  Pollys  and  Sarahs,  with  one  Prudence  —  are 
Tolmans  and  Savils  and  Baxters,  standard  Dorchester  and 
Braintree  names  from  the  beginning,  names  with  which  the 
town  records  are  full.  There  is  no  admixture  of  any  foreign 
element.     It  is  pure,  old  New  England  stock. 


The  Cranes  were  not  rich.  Indeed,  before  the  year  1825  few 
New  England  people  were  rich,  and  the  Cranes  do  not  seem  to 
have  been  at  best  more  than  well  to  do.  They  lived  in  the 
southern  and  western  part  of  the.  town,  and  the  homestead, 
which  was  standini,^  until  about  ten  years  ago,  passed  into  the 
hands  of  one  of  the  older  branches  of  the  family.  Though 
connected  soon  or  late,  by  marriage,  with  almost  every  name 
familiar  to  the  annals  of  Ouincy,  I  cannot  find  that  the  Cranes 
were  ever  town  officers,  or  deacons,  or  delegates  to  the  General 
Court,  or  in  any  way  prominent  in  local  affairs.  From  gener- 
ation to  generation  their  lives  were  the  usual  lives  of  common 
hard-working  New  England  yeomen  ;  they  were  born,  they 
married  and  had  children,  and  presently  they  died.  And 
these  events,  and  these  only,  are  recorded  concerning  them  ; 
unless,  indeed,  as  in  the  case  of  Ebenezer  Crane,  at  some  time 
their  names  found  a  place  on  the  muster-rolls  of  the  French 
or  the  Indian  or  the  Revolutionary  war. 

Such  was  the  life  of  Thomas  Crane,  the  father  ;  born  in 
1770,  just  as  the  Revolutionary  troubles  were  about  to  begin, 
and  married  in  1796,  four  years  after  the  old  North  Precinct 
was  set  off  from  the  town  of  Braintree  and  called  Ouincy. 
A  few  years  after  his  marriage  to  Sarah  Ba.xter  this  Thomas 
Crane  left  Ouincy,  and  made  his  home  for  a  time  on  George's 
Island,  in  Boston  Bay,  where  Fort  Warren  was  afterwards  built 
and  now  stands.  That  island  then  belonged  to  one  Caleb 
Rice,  and  contained  about  thirty-five  acres  of  land,  rising  on 
the  ocean  side  to  a  bluff  some  fifty  feet  above  high-water  mark. 
Not  until  1825  did  it  pass  into  the  hands  of  the  city  of  Boston, 
and  work  on  Fort  Warren  was  begun  in  1833.  During  the 
earliest  years  of  the  century,  while  Thomas  Crane  lived  there, 
George's  was  a  farm,  and  place  to  which  stock  was  sent  for 
keeping  ;  and  his  house  was  also  a  house  of  call  for  such  ex- 
cursionists as,  during  the  season  in  those  earlier  and  sim|)ler 
days,  had  occasion  for  a  place  of  refreshment  in  the  bay.  Here, 
on  the  1 8th  of  October,  1803,  that  son  was  born  who,  nearly 
seventy-two  years  later,  on  the  isl  of  April,  1875,  diicl  in  the 
city  of  New  York. 

Thomas  Crane  the  younger  was  a  typical  man.      His  career, 


6 

as  you  will  presently  sec,  was  not  in  any  respect  dramatic.  It 
affords  no  episodes  to  which  a  biographer,  much  less  an  orator, 
could  skilfully  lead  up,  and  then  dwell  upon  them,  sure  of  the 
sympathy  of  his  audience.  He  was  merely  a  self-educated,  self- 
made  son  of  New  England,  well-intentioned  and  clear-headed, 
who,  a  youth,  went  out  from  his  home  into  the  great  world 
and  there  amassed  a  fortune,  preserving,  amid  all  temptations, 
his  New  England  birthright  traits  of  simplicity,  thrift,  straight- 
forward honesty  and  deep  religious  feeling.  He  did  not  infuse 
himself  into  great  movements  with  which,  becoming  forever  a 
part  of  them,  he  identified  his  career  ;  on  the  contrary  he  was 
a  quiet,  domestic  man,  silent,  strong  and  practical.  Satisfied 
with  the  position  he  had  won,  and  doing  his  honest  day's  work 
in  it,  he  had  no  ambition  for  office  or  worldly  distinction. 
Thomas  Crane,  therefore,  does  not  stand  forward  and  arrest 
attention  as  an  imposing  individuality  ;  and  it  is  the  very  fact 
that,  being  just  what  he  was  and  doing  what  he  did,  he  does 
not  so  stand  forth,  —  it  is  this  fact  which  makes  him  a  typical, 
a  representative  man,  a  man  whom  it  is  well  to  commemo- 
rate. He  represents  almost  ideally  what  was  strongest  and, 
upon  the  whole,  best  in  that  remarkable  race  of  men  to  which 
he  belonged. 

It  has  been  said  very  often,  and  with  sufficient  truth,  that 
the  three  great 'staples  of  New  England  are  ice  and  rocks  and 
men.  New  England,  since  the  year  1800,  has  indeed  been  for 
this  continent  what  Asia  once  was  for  Europe,  the  nursery  of 
nations.  In  its  case  the  biblical  injunction  to  be  fruitful  and 
multiply  and  replenish  the  earth  and  subdue  it,  has  been  strictly 
complied  with  ;  and  there  has  gone  forth  from  it  a  column,  almost 
countless  in  number,  of  men  and  women  of  the  pure  Enghsh 
blood  and  the  rough  New  England  breeding,  who  have  carried 
their  native  thrift  and  energy,  and  the  social  and  political  and 
religious  teachings  of  their  birthplace,  through  all  the  broad 
belt  of  country  lying  west  of  them,  until  they  found  themselves 
stopped  by  the  waters  of  the  Pacific.  From  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line  on  the  South,  to  the  great  lakes  on  the  North,  they 
penetrated  every  nook  and  corner  between  the  Falls  of  Niagara 
and  the  Golden  Gate.     They  leavened  the  whole  lump.     It  is 


now  safe  to  say  that  this  New  England  race  —  this  Greater 
Britain,  as  English  writers  have  called  it  —  is  destined  to  play 
no  small  part  in  the  future  history,  not  of  this  continent,  (in 
that  the  predominance  of  its  part  is  already  settled,)  but  no 
small  part  in  the  history  of  civilization  itself.  The  future  is 
theirs.  Of  this  migrating  column  Thomas  Crane  was  one. 
More  than  that,  he  was,  and  to  the  last  remained,  in  his  own 
person  and  character,  representative  of  whatever  was  best  and 
strongest  and  most  individual  in  it.  lo  commemorating  here 
the  individual,  we  also  commemorate  the  mass. 

Those  who  composed  the  great  New  England  migration 
were  the  direct  result  of  two  centuries  of  the  surroundings  of 
others  who  had  preceded  and  led  up  to  them.  They  had  been 
undergoing  the  educational  process,  —  so  to  speak,  they  had 
been  at  school  for  two  hundred  years  before  they  were  born. 
Men  and  women  of  this  native  growth,  they  were  then  trans- 
planted to  a  richer,  a  more  generous  soil.  But  though  they 
changed  their  skies,  they  did  not  change  their  minds  ;  and 
where  they  went  they  carried  New  England  with  them.  To 
understand  the  men,  therefore,  we  must  understand  the  sur- 
roundings amid  which  they  grew  up  ;  and,  in  the  case  of  those 
who  were  born  and  educated  before  the  year  1825,  that  —  at 
any  rate  here  in  Ouincy  —  is  no  longer  an  easy  thing  to  do. 
The  fact  is  —  and  it  is  none  the  less  a  fact  because  a  singular 
and  a  startling  one  —  that  the  Ouincy  of  1825  is  further  re- 
moved from  us,  than  was  the  Ouincy  of  1825  from  the  Brain- 
tree  North  Precinct  of  1660.  The  changes  of  the  last  si.xty 
years  have  vastly  exceeded  those  of  the  preceding  century  and 
a  half  Born  in  1803,  and  leaving  his  home  in  1829,  the 
younger  Thomas  Crane  grew  up  in  another  world  from  that  we 
live  in.  —  a  world  remote  to  us,  even  though  many  who  walk 
our  streets  still  easily  recall  it.  What,  then,  was  that  Ouincy 
of  the  first  quarter  of  the  century  ? 

In  1829  the  present  order  of  things,  in  communities  known 
tis  civilized,  had  not  yet  begun.  In  England  a  rough  miner 
and  self-educated  mechanic  was  laboriously  puzzling  out  the 
locomotive  engine  ;  here,  in  Ouincy.  Gridlcy  liryant  had  three 
years  before  opened  the  original  Granile  Railway  ;    but  not  for 


two  years  yet  was  the  first  Massachusetts  railroad  chartered  ; 
not  for  nine  years  was  the  "  Sirius  "  to  cross  the  Atlantic  ; 
not  for  fifteen  years  was  the  first  telegraph  wire  to  be  strung. 
The  world  was  in  the  stage-coach  period.  The  steamboat  had 
indeed  been  introduced,  but  it  still  took  two  or  three  days  to 
go  from  Boston  to  New  York  ;  and  when,  in  1826,  John  Quincy 
Adams  hurried  on  from  Washington  to  Quincy  to  his  father's 
death-bed,  he  noted  in  his  diary  that,  leaving  Washington  at 
five  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  9th  of  July,  he  heard  of 
John  Adams's  death — which  had  occurred  five  days  before  — 
when  he  got  to  Baltimore,  and  he  reached  Boston  at  nine 
o'clock  on  the  evening  of  the  12th.  Travelling  with  all  the 
haste  he  could,  he  had  accomplished  his  journey  in  eighty-eight 
hours,  or  at  an  average  speed  of  about  five  miles  an  hour. 
Ohio  was  then  the  West ;  and  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi, 
hardly  entered  upon  by  any  one,  had  not  yet  seen  the  first 
indication  of  the  coming  inroad  from  New  England. 

Quincy  in  those  days  was  very  much  what  it  had  been  from 
the  beginning,  —  a  sequestered  New  England  country  town, 
inhabited  by  a  race  of  one  blood  and  language,  whose  fathers 
had  lived  there  before  them  in  just  the  way  they  were  living 
there  then.  It  was  a  quiet,  sleepy,  conservative  place.  -  In 
1803,  when  Thomas  Crane  v^as  born,  the  entire  population  of 
the  town  did  not  exceed  twelve  hundred  souls  ;  and  when  he 
moved  away,  twenty-six  years  later,  it  was  but  two  thousand. 
They  were  all  native  Americans.  There  was  not  a  foreign  face 
to  be  seen  or  a  foreign  accent  to  be  heard.  The  blood  was 
pure  English  ;  the  names  were  all  English  ;  but  the  education 
was  not  English.  That  was  wholly  of  New  England,  —  the 
education  of  the  church,  the  tavern,  the  town-meeting,  the 
training-field,  and  the  common  school. 

As  from  the  beginning,  the  town  still  clustered  near  the 
church,  which  indeed  was  the  nucleus  about  which  it  had 
slowly  grown  up.  The  parish  was  the  precinct.  Unlike  most 
of  its  sister  towns,  Quincy,  however,  even  then  boasted  two 
religious  societies  :  the  original  Puritan  congregational  parish, 
the  established  church  of  town  and  state  ;  and  the  Episcopal 
church,  which  had  been  planted  here  a  whole  century  before. 


No  other  denominational  society  had  yet  organized  itself,  nor 
was  any  other  organized  until  1832  ;  and  in  1828,  as  nearly  as 
can  be  ascertained,  the  Mass  had  never  yet  been  celebrated  in 
Quincy. 

The  meeting-house,  that  which  was  in  f:ict  the  single  and 
common  place  of  worship,  stood  upon  the  village  green  and  train- 
ing-ground, close  to  where  this  edifice  now  is.  The  old  wooden 
structure,  the  walls  of  which  had  then  sheltered,  and  within 
which  in  winter  had  shivered,  three  generations  of  his  fore- 
fathers, was  removed  the  year  before  Thomas  Crane  left  the 
town.  Close  to  its  entrance  up  to  the  last  had  stood  the 
horse-block,  just  as  it  had  stood  there  from  the  beginning  ; 
and  all  about  it  on  the  Sabbath  were  hitched  the  rude  car- 
riages and  wagons  which  had  brought  the  congregation  from 
their  homes.  In  that  dull,  monotonous  life,  the  going  to  church 
was  the  event  of  the  week,  and  the  gossip  of  the  meeting- 
house and  the  discourses  of  the  ministers  were  the  staple  in- 
tellectual nutriment.  They  supplied  the  place,  so  far  as  the 
place  was  supplied,  of  lectures  and  concerts  and  newspapers 
and  current  literature  now. 

Long  before  Thomas  Crane  was  born,  however,  the  old  Puri- 
tan theological  heat  had  burnt  itself  out  in  Quincy,  and  the 
doctrine  preached  from  the  pulpit  here  was  then  hardly  a  liv- 
ing one.  It  did  not  take  hold  of  the  people.  They  went  to 
meeting  because  their  fathers  had  gone  there  and  they  had 
been  brought  up  to  it,  and  because  it  made  a  break  in  the 
week  ;  but  as  a  living  and  guiding  force  the  pulpit  had  in 
Quincy  ceased  to  make  itself  felt.  It  was  a  fading  tradition. 
Nor  did  the  sister  Episcopal  church  fill  the  seat  thus  vacated. 
On  the  contrary,  always  and  everywhere  an  exotic  in  New 
England,  that  church  here  was  then  in  a  state  of  utter  decrep- 
itude. The  life  hardly  lingered  in  it,  and  it  had  none  to  im- 
part. Those  who  thirsted  could  not  hope  to  quench  their 
thirst  from  that  source.  The  church  edifice  stood  in  its  little 
burying-ground,  —  the  old  churchyard  after  the  ICnglish  wont, 
—  but  within  its  walls,  during  the  first  quarter  of  the  century, 
hardly  more  life  stirred  than  stirred  within  the  graves  which 
surrounded  it.     In  silence  its  pulpit  awaited  a  later  revival. 


lO 


As  there  was  in  reality  but  one  church,  so  also  there  was  but 
one  school  in  the  town.  There  was  no  West  Quincy,  or  At- 
lantic, or  Wollaston,  or  even  South  Quincy  or  Quincy  Point 
then,—  outlying  districts  of  the  town  as  large  as  the  town  it- 
self. Atlantic  was  known  as  the  Farms,  Wollaston  was  a  cow- 
pasture,  West  Quincy  a  wilderness  called  the  Woods,  Quincy 
Point  a  region  designated  as  the  Old  Fields,  which  until  1812 
had  no  road  through  it,  or  any  connection  with  the  country 
beyond  the  Fore-river.  Thomas  Crane,  the  father,  lived  near 
a  creek  leading  out  of  that  river,  and  which  still  bears  his 
name;  but  during  his  life  his  farm  never  had  a  public  way 
through  it.  It  lay  by  itself,  as  did  the  farms  about  it,— out- 
side, as  it  were,  even  of  the  httle  Quincy  world,  and  secluded 
from  it. 

Thus  there  was  then  small  occasion  for  great  school-houses 
in  all  sections  of  the  town,  for  there  were  not  many  children  to 
occupy  them.  None  the  less,  while  the  voters  annually  appro- 
priated from  $400,  in  1804,  to  $700,  in  1828,  to  a  single  gram- 
mar school  at  the  centre,  they  also  voted  sums,  varying  from  $5 
to  ^120,  to  each  ot  the  outlying  districts  to  provide  for  the  sum- 
mer education  of  its  youth.  The  simple  building,  which  served 
both  as  a  town-hall  and  as  a  central  school-house,  until  the  last 
day  of  the  year  181 5,  was  placed  on  the  unfenced  training- 
ground,  facing  the  Plymouth  road.  Then  destroyed  by  fire, 
the  better  building,  which  in  18 17  succeeded  it,  cost  but  the 
modest  sum  of  $2100.  That  building  stood  on  the  southern 
verge  of  the  little  cemetery  opposite,  or  graveyard  as  it  was 
most  properly  called,  for  a  yard  indeed  it  was.  Our  fathers 
were  not  a  sentimental  race.  There  was  no  Decoration  Day 
then.  That  little  graveyard  held  the  ashes  of  six  generations 
of  villagers,  —  the  rude  forefathers  of  the  hamlet,  —  but  until 
1809  it  stood  unfenced  and  uncared  for  by  the  roadside,  a 
thoroughfare  and  a  common  in  which  cattle  grazed  among 
tombstones  and  lay  between  graves. 

Thomas  Crane,  however,  had  to  do  with  the  school-house  in 
Quincy,  and  not  with  the  graveyard  upon  which  the  windows 
of  that  school-house  looked.  During  the  first  quarter  of  the 
century,   though   there   was  but   a   single   school-house   in  the 


II 


town,  that  single  school-house  after  a  fashion  sufficed  for  exist- 
ing needs.  Some  children  had  indeed  to  walk  several  miles  a 
day,  —  the  Crane  children  at  least  four  miles ;  but  they  were 
sturdy  country  boys  and  girls,  and  it  does  not  appear  that  they 
or  others  were  the  worse  for  it ;  the  probabilities,  on  the  con- 
trary, arc  that  they  were  a  good  deal  the  better.  Within  the 
school-house,  when  they  got  there,  were  gathered,  during  the 
winter  months,  all  the  children  of  the  town,  204  scholars,  as 
the  Committee  reported  in  1820;  of  whom  79 — among  them 
doubtless  young  Thomas  Crane  —  belonged  to  the  cyphering- 
school,  so  called.  It  was  no  cause  for  wonder,  therefore,  that 
the  Committee  further  reported  that  the  "  room  was  so  much 
crowded  that  the  scholars  were  obliged  to  wait  one  for  the 
other  for  seats,  notwithstanding  the  master  gave  up  his  desk, 
and  used  every  other  means  in  his  power  to  accommodate 
them."  To  remedy  this  evil  the  Committee  then  went  on  to 
submit  a  plan  for  certain  alterations,  at  an  estimated  cost  of 
$200,  by  which  250  scholars  were  to  be  brought  together  in 
one  room  and  under  one  master,  "  with  an  assistant  when 
necessary."  This,  remember,  was  in  Ouincy  in  the  year  1820. 
Two  hundred  and  fifty  children  in  one  room,  crowded  into 
"seats  calculated  to  accommodate  two  scholars  when  writing, 
and  three  when  they  are  not  writing"!  Such,  in  the  better 
class  of  towns,  was  the  New  England  country  schooling  during 
the  first  quarter  of  the  century.  Such  was  the  only  schooling 
young  Thomas  Crane  ever  had. 

In  this  common  room  were  gathered  children  of  all  ages, 
from  the  overgrown  lad,  already  a  man,  to  the  little  girl  learn- 
ing her  letters  ;  and  during  a  portion  of  the  school-days  of 
young  Crane  that  room  must  have  been  presided  over  by 
Master  William  Seaver,  whose  nam(^  is  as  deeply  cut  in  the 
educational  annals  of  Ouincy  as,  according  to  all  tradition,  the 
rod  he  so  freely  used,  after  the  fashion  of  his  time,  cut  into  the 
backs  of  his  refractory  pupils.  If  the  use  of  the  rod  would 
indeed  have  saved  the  child,  not  many  of  the  youth  of  Ouincy, 
between  18 12  and  1830,  ought  in  life  to  have  gone  astray. 
None  the  less  it  should  be  added  that  his  old  jjupils  always  re- 
tained   a    kindly  feeling  towards   Master  Seaver,  who  taught 


12 

here  for  twenty-eight  years,  and  saw  the  old  system  go  out  and 
the  new  system  come  in.  Up  to  1829,  however,  the  primi- 
tive New  England  system  was  wholly  unreformed.  The  great 
logs  of  wood  blazed  in  open  fireplaces  at  both  ends  of  the 
unpainted,  barrack-like  room,  while  the  children  were  crowded 
on  rude  settles  which  might  have  been  handed  down  from  the 
pre- Revolutionary  period,  so  hacked  and  disfigured  were  they 
by  the  jack-knives  of  succeeding  generations  of  boys. 

The  entire  school  appropriation  for  1803  was  but  $430, 
and  in  1829  it  had  only  risen  to  ^1,400,  of  which  Master 
Seaver  received  $500  as  salary.  These  sums  seem  to  us 
small  sums,  and  they  were  small ;  yet  they  were  all  the  town 
could  afford.  The  people  then  were  poor  and  few.  In  the 
election  of  1803  there  were  but  8y  votes  cast,  and  in  1828 
only  123  ;  the  latter  was  a  Presidential  election,  also,  and 
a  citizen  of  Quincy  was  one  of  the  candidates.  The  elec- 
tion of  1828,  it  is  true,  was  not  warmly  contested  in  Massa- 
chusetts,—  the  vote,  of  Quincy,  for  instance,  being  nearly 
unanimous  ;  but  .the  largest  vote  ever  cast  in  the  town  before 
1830  was  but  217.  Poor  as  they  were  few,  these  people  were 
economical  because  they  had  to  be  economical.  A  saving 
thrift  was  ground  into  them  by  their  necessities.  In  public 
as  in  private  every  cent  of  outgo  had  to  be  watched.  In  the 
houses  wheaten  bread  was  a  luxury  rarely  seen.  Cornmeal 
was  the  staple  of  life  ;  molasses  was  the  condiment ;  the  barrel 
of  salted  meat  was  the  stand-by.  But  the  public  expenditures 
will  perhaps  afford  the  best  scale  of  comparison.  In  1810, 
when  Thomas  Crane,  the  father,  moved  up  to  Quincy  Point 
from  George's  Island,  the  entire  appropriation  made  by  Quincy 
for  public  purposes  —  and  those  purposes  included  the  parish 
as  well  as  the  town  —  was  but  $3,200,  or  $2.50  on  the  average 
to  an  inhabitant.  In  1829,  when  Thomas  Crane,  the  son,  went 
to  New  York,  and  when  the  parish  had  been  separated  from 
the  town,  the  appropriation  was  $3,500,  or  $1.75  to  an  inhabi- 
tant ;  it  is  now  about  $12  to  an  inhabitant.  The  instruc- 
tion then  afforded  in  the  public  schools  was,  perhaps,  not  of 
the  best,  when  judged  by  present  standards  ;  but  in  1827  it 
cost  the  town  exactly  $3.00  a  year  for  each  child  taught,  in- 


-a 
LlJ 


o 

UJ 


O 


LlI 


13 

stead  of  over  $i6  in  1880.  In  1814  a  report  was  made  on  the 
maintenance  of  the  poor;  and  the  average  cost  of  it  in  three 
neig;hboring  towns  was  stated  at  St,  cents  per  week  for  each 
pauper.  Such  were  the  simpUcity  and  economy  of  that  period 
as  compared  with  this.  The  poor  were  no  poorer  than  now  ; 
that  they  could  not  be.  Comparatively,  however,  they  were 
far  more  numerous,  and  actually  no  one  was  rich. 

But  the  community  was  not  poor  only ;  it  was  wholly  with- 
out what  would  now  be  called  appliances.  Those  composing  it 
had  houses  and  rude  tools  and  unproductive  land  ;  that  was 
about  all.  As  a  community  it  was,  as  we  would  consider,  cut 
completely  off  from  active  communication  with  the  world  out- 
side, and  thrown  back  upon  itself;  while  within  itself  little  was 
to  be  found  in  the  way  of  intellectual  nutriment  beyond  dry 
husks.  There  was  no  Public  Library,  no  Adams  Academy, 
no  High  School  in  the  town;  —  as  we  have  seen,  not  even  a 
public  graded  school.  President  John  Adams,  keenly  recalling 
the  hard,  up-hill  struggle  of  his  own  youth,  had  indeed,  in  1822, 
given  to  Ouincy  that  library  of  his  own,  which  now  at  last, 
after  sixty  years  of  wandering  and  neglect,  finds  a  fitting  resting 
place  in  the  alcoves  of  the  Crane  Memorial  Hall  ;  but  the 
books  in  that  library  were  neither  accessible,  nor  adapted  to 
the  needs  of  a  country  boy  craving  knowledge.  In  the  village 
there  was  a  private  association  which  owned  a  few  of  the  books 
of  the  day,  and  to  this  young  Thomas  Crane  was  a  subscriber. 
Doubtless  he  mastered  the  little  store  of  learning  thus  made 
accessible  ;  but  I  cannot  find  that  in  the  house  of  Thomas 
Crane,  the  father,  though  he  was  a  man,  for  those  times,  well 
to  do,  there  was  a  single  book  for  his  children  to  read  or  learn 
from,  except  the  Bible  and  Pilgrim's  Progress.  Neither  did 
the  modern  newspaper  then  exist.  Take  up  any  one  of  half 
a  dozen  Boston  papers  now  daily  spread  broadcast  over  the 
town,  and  it  is  an  education  in  itself;  the  world  of  to-day. 
intellectual,  political,  social,  geographical,  is  condensed  and 
photograplicd  in  its  columns.  Everything  is  there  jiopular- 
ized  and  brought  within  easy  reach  of  the  poorest.  Then  go 
back  and  examine,  in  the  files  of  the  Thomas  Crane  Library, 
a    newspaper    of   the    year    when    young    (^-ane    left    Ouincy. 


H 

It  is  not  the  same  thing  ;  it  is  scarcely  even  a  suggestion  of 
it.  For  sale  nowhere,  sent  only  to  subscribers,  it  is  the 
newspaper  of  the  politician,  the  merchant  and  the  profes- 
sional man,  —  and  very  poor  and  meagre  at  that.  There  is 
nothing  popular  or  instructive  about  it.  It  was  not  meant 
for  the  million,  and  it  never  reached  them.  The  people's 
newspaper  was,  in  1829,  yet  to  be  invented.  So  also  of  cor- 
respondence. Beyond  the  narrow  circle  of  the  educated  gentry 
it  was  an  unknown  art.  A  post-office  had  indeed  existed  in 
Quincy  since  1795  ;  and  during  the  youth  of  Thomas  Crane  it 
found  an  abiding-place  in  the  building  which  stood  where  the 
former  Hancock  House  now  stands,  and  there  it  remained  for 
six-and-thirty  years.  Even  I  can  remember  when  post-office 
and  tap-room  were  one,  and  the  thin  mail-bag  was  flung  on  the 
whiskey-reeking  bar,  over  which  its  contents  were  presently 
distributed.  Before  1829,  however,  mails  were  infrequent,  and 
the  rates  of  postage  enormous,  and  no  letter  or  paper  ever 
reached  remote  families  like  the  Cranes.  They  lived,  perforce, 
in  and  by  themselves. 

Such  was  Quincy  ;  such  was  the  ordinary  New  England 
country  town  at  the  time  the  New  England  column  began  to 
move.  The  surroundings  were  hard.  Those  who  broke  their 
way  successfully  through  them  did  so  by  virtue  of  sheer,  native 
strength.  Thomas  Crane  the  younger  did  this.  It  was  no  in- 
considerable thing  to  do  ;  and  because  he  did  it,  and  did  it 
successfully,  his  Memorial  Building  stands  here  in  his  native 
town  to-day.  Here  it  was  that  he  passed  his  youth  ;  here  it 
was  that  he  developed  into  manhood  ;  here  he  received  those 
impressions  which  shaped  his  riper  character.  That  the  cir- 
cumstances were  especially  favorable,  or  his  surroundings  alto- 
gether good,  no  one  will  maintain  who  has  made  a  study  of 
them.  We  are  altogether  too  much  disposed,  in  looking  back 
on  the  successful  careers  of  the  rough-hewn,  self-taught  men  of 
that  generation,  to  see  only  the  Arcadian  character  of  the 
earlier  times.  We  are  apt  to  assume  that  at  least  they  began 
life  with  simpler,  purer,  more  patriarchal  and  virtuous  sur- 
roundings than  the  present,  —  that  they  were  not  subjected  to 
our  temptations,  even   if  they  did  not  enjoy  our  advantages. 


15 

This  is  all  false.  It  was  a  rugged,  stubborn,  gnarly  race,  that 
of  New  England  which  I  have  endeavored  to  portray,  —  accus- 
tomed to  self-care  and  self-rule,  laborious,  thrifty,  money-saving  ; 
but,  judged  by  our  standards,  those  composing  it  were  far  from 
refined,  and  neither  abstemious  nor  self-contained.  They  were 
harsh  rather  than  virtuous  ;  more  austere  than  moral.  They 
had  their  besetting  sins. 

Chief  among  these  besetting  sins  was  intemperance.  I  have 
already  named  the  tavern  as  being  —  with  the  church,  the  town- 
meeting  and  the  public  school  —  one  of  the  educational  influ- 
ences of  the  earlier  period.  Few  who  have  not  studied  deeply 
the  history  of  that  period  have  any  conception  what  a  part  in 
it  the  tavern  played.  It  was  the  rough  club-house  and  political 
debating  school,  —  the  predecessor  of  the  caucus  and  the  ward- 
room ;  it  was  also  to  many  —  to  altogether  too  many  —  the 
yawning,  gateway  of  Hell.  Rum  was  the  bane  of  New  Eng- 
land ;  and  it  remained  the  bane  of  those  who  went  forth  from 
New  England.  John  Adams,  writing  in  his  diary  in  1796, 
exclaimed,  io  view  of  what  he  then  saw  going  on  among  the 
workmen  on  his  farm  :  "  If  the  ancients  drank  wine  as  our 
people  drink  rum  and  cider,  it  is  no  wonder  we  read  of  so 
many  possessed  with  devils  ;"  and  as  late  as  1841  the  town 
of  Quincy  voted  to  give  its  alms-house  paupers  "a  temperate 
use  of  ardent  spirits  when  they  work  on  the  road  or  farm." 
No  man,  however,  had  a  chance  for  success  in  life  who  did 
not  keep  himself  free  from  this  curse  ;  and  of  those  who  went 
out  from  New  England  to  seek  their  fortunes,  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  rum  ruined,  body  and  soul,  the  vast  majority.  In  1825 
that  temperance  movement,  which  has  since  wrought  such  a 
wonder  of  reform  for  New  England,  had  not  begun  to  make 
itself  felt  ;  and.  indeed,  the  first  of  those  ^societies  which,  in 
the  strong  language  of  the  day,  were  to  prevent  Americans 
from  becoming  "a  community  of  drunkards,"  was  not  organ- 
ized in  Boston  until  a  year  later,  in  1826.  The  road  young 
Crane  had  to  tread  was,  therefore,  not  a  safe' one.  It  was,  on 
the  contrary,  dangerously  beset  ;  and,  like  all  the  rest,  he  had 
only  himself  to  rely  on. 

There  was  but  one  real   safeguard    against   the  (lander.      It 


i6 


was  found  in  the  simple  morals  and  strong  religious  feeling 
which  prevailed  at  so  many  hearthstones.  Those  who  went 
forth  thus  shielded  were  saved  ;  the  rest  were  lost.  The  harsh 
general  tone  of  the  church  and  the  magistrate  counted  for 
little  that  was  good ;  indeed,  it  led  rather  to  a  greater  license 
in  reaction.  It  was  the  innate  or  cultivated  moral  sense  and 
rehgious  quickening  which  saved.  Fortunately  for  Thomas 
Crane,  with  an  apparently  native  self-respect,  he  also  had  from 
an  early  age  a  strong  religious  tendency.'  Whence  he  derived 
it  cannot  be  ascertained,  for,  as  I  have  already  intimated, 
Quincy  was  not  a  town  remarkable  for  its  theological  fervor. 
The  strong,  sulphurous  doctrines  which  gave  its  moral  force 
to  Calvinism  certainly  were  not  heard  from  the  Rev.  Peter 
Whitney's  pulpit.  At  home  young  Crane  had  no  peculiar 
advantages.  The  religious  yearning  was  there,  however,  and 
as  he  grew  to  man's  estate  he  was  conscious  that  it  was  not 
satisfied  in  Quincy.  His  father  had  died  in  1818,  not  yet 
forty-nine.  Though  a  substantial  farmer  and  a  man  well  off 
for  the  times,  he  left  a  wife  and  six  children  to  divide  his  small 
estate,  —  the  oldest  of  the  children  being  not  yet  of  age,  while 
young  Thomas  was  only  fifteen.  A  strong,  robust,  well-knit 
lad,  the  choice  of  a  means  of  earning  his  living  was  before 
him.  He  could  not  well  be  a  lawyer,  a  minister,  or  a  doctor, 
—  a  member  of  one  of  the  three  learned  professions  as  they 
were  called.  He  had  not  the  education,  nor  had  he  the  means 
or  time  to  get  it.  He  must  earn  his  bread  at  once  ;  and  he 
might  make  shoes,  or  work  on  a  farm,  or  cut  stone  to  do  it. 
He  tried  his  hand  at  shoe-making  for  awhile,  but  the  confine- 
ment injured  his  health  ;  and  fortunately  for  him,  fortunately 
for  his  native  town,  the  lad's  natural  inclinations  then  carried 
him  to  the  more  robust,  the  hardier  calling.  He  became  a 
stone-cutter,  and  as  a  journeyman  learned  his  trade. 

It  was  now,  during  those  most  dangerous  years  of  life  which 
end  youth  and  precede  maturity,  —  the  period  of  false  and 
callow  manhood,  —  it  was  during  these  years  that  young 
Crane's  religious  sense  began  to  stir  and  befriend  him.  In  his 
case  it  was  simply  the  form  which  intellectual  quickening  took. 
The  boy  had  a  head  of  his  own,  and  a  brain  that  worked.     Had 


17 

he  lived  later  he  would  probably  have  taken  to  some  one  of 
those  schools  of  philosophy  and  thought  which  have,  with  such 
regular  recurrence,  marked  the  periods  of  the  century.  He 
would  have  got  the  intellectual  food  he  craved  by  following 
Benthani  or  Mill  or  Carlyle  or  Spenser,  or  possibly  Emerson 
or  Parker.  He  was,  however,  either  beyond  their  reach  or 
before  their  time;  and  so  his  brain-hunger  turned  on  the  only 
thing  at  hand,  —  the  Bible  and  religion,  the  old  New  England 
stand-bys. 

Eastern  Massachusetts  was  at  this  time  in  something  of  a 
religious  ferment.  Universalism,  the  most  liberal  creed  of  the 
day,  was  striking  its  roots  into  the  soil.  Murray  and  Ballou 
were  at  the  height  of  their  fame  ;  their  tracts  were  distributed 
broadcast  ;  large  meetings  were  being  held  in  all  the  towns.  I 
do  not  know  that  this  revival  reached  in  any  active  form  the 
quiescent  village  of  Ouincy,  but  if  the  seed  which  fell  here  fell 
mainly  in  stony  places,  some  of  it  at  least  came  in  the  path 
of  Thomas  Crane,  and  bore  fruit  an  hundred-fold.  Father 
Hosea  Ballou,  as  he  was  affectionately  called,  then  preached 
to  a  congregation  which  met  in  School  Street,  in  Boston, 
However  or  wherever  he  first  heard  him,  in  listening  to  Mr. 
Ballou  the  young  Ouincy  stone-cutter  now  found  that  nutri- 
ment he  craved.  He  could  get  to  hear  him  but  in  one  way. 
There  were  no  public  Sunday  conveyances  then  ;  a  journey- 
man stone-cutter  could  not  afford  to  indulge  in  horse  or  wagon  ; 
the  distance  from  Ouincy  Point  to  School  Street  was  ten 
good  miles.  Young  Crane  walked  them.  A  religious  feeling 
strong  enough  to  induce  a  man  hardly  more  than  a  boy  to 
tramp  twenty  miles  of  a  Sunday  to  listen  to  his  favorite 
preacher,  was  worth  something.  '  He  who  did  it  had  the 
making  of  something  in  him.  If  more  of  those  who,  during 
the  first  forty  years  of  the  century,  left  Ouincy  to  seek  their 
fortunes,  had  felt  moved  to  do  as  much,  not  so  many  of  them 
would  at  a  later  day  have  disappeared  in  failure. 

Years  passed  on.  Having  mastered  his  calling  as  a  stone- 
cutter, the  young  man  began  to  look  abroad  from  Ouincy  for  a 
wider  field.  He  had  no  money,  no  connections,  not  much 
education  ;    his  capital    was   simply  a  strong  healthy  body,  a 


i8 


clear  head,  and  his  skill  as  a  stone-cutter.  With  these,  backed 
by  frugal,  temperate,  honest  habits,  he,  in  1829,  went  out  into 
the  world.  It  was  a  good  stock  in  trade.  No  connections,  no 
opening  before  him  ready  made  to  his  hand,  carried  him  to 
New  York.  He  went  there  just  as  thousands  and  hundreds 
of  thousands,  first  and  last,  have  gone  there, — a  young  man 
seeking  his  fortune,  a  workman  in  search  of  work.  He  went 
there  just  as  Ouincy  boys  have  gone  there  beforehand  since  ; 
and  just  as  they  are  going  there  and  elsewhere  now.  His 
elder  brother  had  preceded  him  and  was  already  in  New  York ; 
and  the  way  they  met  is  a  curious  illustration  of  how  differ- 
ent those  days  were  from  these,  and  how  few  and  little  used 
the  means  of  communication  were.  Though  both  were  in  New 
York,  neither  of  the  two  brothers  knev/  where  the  other  was, 
and  they  finally  met  on  the  steps  of  the  Universalist  church, 
either  in  Prince  or  Duane  Street,  to  which,  doubtless,  Thomas 
Crane  had  found  his  way  on  the  first  Sabbath  after  his  arrival 
in  the  strange  city. 

There,  however,  at  twenty-six  years  of  age,  he  was,  in  the 
place  thenceforward  to  be  his  home.  Instead  of  looking  aim- 
lessly about  for  short-cuts  to  fortune,  he  went  to  work  at  once 
at  his  trade,  and  began  to  earn  day  wages  hammering  stone. 
At  that  time,  and  during  the  next  few  years,  several  attempts 
were  made  by  associations  of  journeyman  stone-cutters  to  start 
yards  in  New  York  upon  a  co-operative  plan.  With  one  of 
these,  on  the  east  side  of  the  city,  the  new-comer  from  Ouincy 
presently  identified  himself.  His,  however,  was  too  active  a 
mind,  and  he  had  too  large  a  brain,  to  permit  him  long  to 
remain  a  journeyman,  and  as  early  as  1835  he  was  a  master 
workman ;  already  he  had  e'nrolled  himself  among  the  captains 
of  industry. 

It  was  forty-seven  years  after  he  went  to  New  York  that 
Thomas  Crane  died,  —  nearly  half  a  century  ;  and  it  was  a  half 
century  of  such  general  growth  and  development  as  the  world 
had  not  before  seen.  In  1829  it  was  but  four  years  since 
Governor  De  Witt  Clinton  had  opened  to  navigation  the  Erie 
Canal.  When  it  was  thus  for  the  first  time  brought  in  direct 
communication  with  the  great  lakes.  New  York  was  a  city  of 


i9 

less  tlian  200,000  inhabitants.  In  1831  the  first  hnk  of  what 
is  now  the  New  York  Central  Railroad  was  opened  to  travel. 
In  1S44  the  telegraph  went  into  operation.  Of  more  imme- 
diate concern  to  Thomas  Crane,  however,  was  that  great  fire 
which  broke  out  in  New  York  on  the  i6th  of  December,  1835, 
and  which,  burning  for  three  whole  days,  laid  in  ruins  the 
busiest  parts  ot  the  town.  All  these  events,  and  especially  the 
last,  had  a  direct  bearing  on  his  fortunes.  The  canal,  the  rail- 
road, the  telegraph  and  the  fire  combined  to  make  out  of  the 
quiet  city  of  1829  the  bustling  metropolis  of  to-day.  New 
York,  as  we  see  it,  was  to  be  built,  and  it  was  Thomas  Crane's 
work  in  life  to  help  supply  the  granite  with  which  to  build  it. 
His  opportunity  was  there,  and  he  availed  himself  of  it.  Not 
much  more  can  be  said  of  any  man.  To  be  equal  to  the  occa- 
sion in  life  when  it  presents  itself  makes  human  success. 
During  nearly  thirty  years  of  as  active  construction  as  any 
great  city  ever  saw,  there  were  few  buildings  of  magnitude 
erected  in  New  York,  in  which  granite  was  used,  to  which 
Thomas  Crane  did  not  contribute,  and  which  did  not  con- 
tribute to  him. 

At  a  very  early  day  he  began  to  buy  out  his  associates  in 
the  stone-yard.  It  was  the  old  story.  They  were  impatient 
and  improvident  ;  they  chafed  at  delay  and  the  slow  movement 
of  things  ;  they  saw,  or  thought  they  saw,  better  chances  else- 
where. So  they  made  short-cuts  to  fortune,  and  doubtless 
remained  poor  all  their  lives.  One  by  one  they  sold  their 
interests  to  the  clearer-headed,  more  patient  man,  who  was 
strong  enough  to  bide  his  time.  It  was  simply  another  case  of 
the  survival  of  the  fittest.  Solid  judgment,  shrewd  honesty 
and  temperate  habits  did  the  work.  Among  them  all  Thomas 
Crane  was  the  fittest  to  survive,  in  that  he  had  most  of  these 
qualities  ;  and  accordingly  survive  the  rest  he  did.  Worlilly 
prosperity  soon  flowed  in  upon  him.  Literally,  he  built  his 
house  upon  a  rock.  Granite,  not  speculation,  was  at  the  foun- 
dation of  his  fortune.  He  made  his  contracts,  ever  growing 
larger  and  larger ;  he  increased  the  size  of  his  yards,  and 
bought  new  ones.  More  and  more  stone  came  to  them  from 
the  quarries  here  at  Ouincy  and  at  Millstone  Point.     A  larger 


20 

number  of  workmen  handled  his  tools.  In  1837,  when  the 
great  financial  storm  burst,  he  suffered  with  the  rest.  He  did 
not,  however,  succumb.  Once  that  crisis  was  weathered,  he 
stood  firm  on  his  feet  ;  and  he  was  firm  on  them  all  the  rest 
of  his  life  The  way  grew  clear.  The  prodigious  growth  of 
New  York  was  now  impending,  and  he  was  one  of  those 
sagacious  enough  to  foresee  it.  His  stone-yards  and  his  granite 
contracts  became  henceforth  only  the  basis  of  his  growing 
prosperity.  He  bought  lands  in  the  path  of  the  city's  devel- 
opment, and  it  grew  up  to  them  and  overran  them.  It  overran 
his  stone-yards.  Thus  his  wealth  increased  with  the  wealth  of 
New  York,  and  enlarged  and  took  new  directions,  under  the 
guidance  always  of  that  same  clean-cut  business  judgment. 
He  was  a  bank  director,  an  insurance-company  director,  a 
street-railway  director,  a  man  of  note  on  'Change.  Long  before 
his  death  his  measure  of  success  in  a  business  walk  was  full,  and 
beyond  that  his  ambition  did  not  go.  As  I  have  already  said,  he 
did  not  care  for  outward  worldly  distinction.  Had  he  cared  for  it, 
with  his  strong  judgment  and  shrewd  common-sense,  he  would 
probably  have  worked  his  way  to  high  office  in  the  State  ;  for 
he  was  one  of  that  class  of  men  who  are  less  often  seen  than 
wanted  in  the  Senate  Chamber  and  the  Cabinet.  I  never  met 
Mr.  Crane,  and  can  therefore  speak  of  him  only  from  the  report 
of  others.  But  I  do,  from  personal  contact,  know  something  of 
those  who  in  recent  years  have  played  prominent  parts  in 
many  public  events  ;  and  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the 
qualities  which  Mr.  Crane  possessed,  and  which  led  to  the 
measure  of  success  he  coveted,  are  those  qualities  which  also 
win  success  in  the  other  and  more  showy  walks  of  life,  but 
which  also,  in  those  who  essay  to  tread  those  walks,  are  not 
infrequently  conspicuous  for  their  absence.  Had  fortune  or 
inclination  called  Thomas  Crane  to  the  position,  he  would  have 
administered  a  department  of  the  national  government  with 
the  same  good  judgment  and  success  with  which  he  managed 
his  stone-yard.  The  qualities  were  all  there  ;  it  was  the  occa- 
sion and  the  call  which  were  wanting. 

The  man's  ambition  did  not  turn  that  way.     His  tastes  were 
domestic  ;  his  devotion  was  to  his  calling.     Not  that  he  lacked 


21 


public  spirit,  or  was  indifferent  to  the  great  questions  of  the 
clay.  On  the  contrary,  he  carried  out  with  him  the  teachings 
of  his  New  England  home,  and  never  forgot  them.  The  church 
to  which  he  belonged,  and  of  which  he  was  long  a  trustee,  — 
the  old  Orchard  Street  Church,  as  it  was  familiarly  called,  under 
the  pastorale  of  Mr.  Crane's  intimate  personal  friend,  Dr. 
Thomas  J.  Sawyer,  —  this  church,  well  known  throughout  New 
York  and  the  Universalist  denomination,  had  in  it  a  strong 
New  England  leaven.  Prominent  among  its  members  was 
Horace  Greeley,  and  with  him  and  his  teachings  Mr.  Crane 
deeply  sympathized.  The  nature  of  his  political  affiliations 
may  be  inferred  from  the  name  of  a  son  born  to  him  in  1850, 
and  whose  premature  and  sudden  death  in  1869  fell  upon  the 
father  with  a  crushing  blow ;  this  son  the  father  christened 
after  Mr.  Greeley's  great  political  chieftain,  —  the  man  who 
may  be  said  to  have  embodied  in  himself  the  Whig  party,  — 
Ilcnry  Clay.  But  it  was  during  the  Antislavery  struggle  that 
Mr.  Crane  found  himself  most  strongly  drawn  to  Greeley  and 
the  "  Tribune."  He  felt  then  deeply,  and  went  all  lengths.  To 
be  an  Antislavery  man  in  New  York  City  before  1861  was  not 
popular.  Thomas  Crane,  however,  sold  his  "granite,  not  his 
political  principles  ;  and  a  zealous,  outspoken  Antislavery  man 
he  remained  from  the  beginning  to  the  bitter  end. 

Not  that  he  took  an  active  part  in  city  politics.     On  the  con- , 
trary.  he  was  one  of  a  minority  there,  in  numbers  contemptible. 
More  than    that,  he  belonged  to  a  class  of  men  who,  to  the 
great  misfortune  of  the  city  and  the  country,  were  long  since 
driven  out  of  New  York  city  politics  or  made  powerless  in  it. 
It  was  in  his  church  and   denomination    that   his  public  spirit 
found  its  freest  expression.      He  was  a  pillar  of  the  Universalist 
cause,   and   the   treasun-r  and    financial   manager  of  its  Relief 
Association.     Later,  when  the  leaders  of  the  Universalist  de- 
nomination founded  Tufts  College,  he  was  a  subscriber  to  its 
funds,  and  he  held  the  position  of  one  of  its  trustees  from  the 
time  it  was  organized   until  he  died.     Indeed,  his  death,  it  is 
said,  was  hastened  by  the  fatigue  of  a  journey  made  in  declin- 
ing health  to  attend  to  his  duties  in  connection  with  it.     Of 
its  library  also  he  was  a  benefactor. 


22 


Of  Mr.  Crane's  other  and  private  life  through  those  forty- 
six  years  after  he  left  Quincy,  it  remains  to  speak.  It  was  not 
uncheckered,  though  in  the  main  a  happy  one.  Three  years 
after  going  to  New  York,  in  1832,  he  married  Sarah  S.  Munn, 
of  Gill,  in  Connecticut,  —  the  first  of  his  race  to  marry  a  woman 
not  Massachusetts  born.  The  following  summer  he  was  a 
childless  widower,  his  young  wife  having  been  swept  away  in 
her  twenty -first  year,  hardly  more  than  a  girl,  one  of  the  ear- 
liest victims  of  the  cholera  when  it  scourged  New  York  in 
1833.  A  little  more  than  three  years  later,  in  November,  1836, 
he  married  Clarissa  Lawrence  Starkey,  of  Troy,  in  New  Hamp- 
shire, who  was  to  remain  his  wife  for  nine  and  thirty  years, 
and  be  the  mother  of  his  eight  children.  It  is  she  who  now, 
in  conjunction  with  two  surviving  sons,  erects  this  monument 
to  the  memory  of  the  husband  and  the  father. 

Having  his  home  always  in  New  York,  a  portion  of  Mr. 
Crane's  summers  for  many  years  was  passed  in  Quincy,  and  to 
Quincy  he  paid  frequent  visits  to  the  end.  It  was  character- 
istic of  the  man  that  he  never  outgrew  his  feeling  for  the  place. 
He  loved  to  come  back  to  the  surroundings  and  friends  of  his 
boyhood.  He  was  fond  of  the  water,  and  liked  when  down  in  the 
bay  to  land  on  George's  Island,  revisiting  his  birthplace  and  the 
scene  of  his  first  recollections,  for  when  his  father  moved  across 
to  the  mainland  he  was  already  a  boy  of  seven.  It  all  seemed 
to  recall  the  glad  confidence  of  life's  morning.  Even  after  he 
had  purchased  that  rocky  country  seat  at  Stamford,  the  gradual 
transformation  of  which  into  a  garden  became  one  of  the  great 
pleasures  of  his  later  years,  Quincy  Point  still  retained  its  hold 
upon  him.  His  tastes,  too,  were  simple.  A  homeish  man,  he 
cared  nothing  for  display,  and  to  the  end  retained  the  habits  of 
his  youth.  His  greatest  trial  was  the  loss  of  children  ;  for,  a 
deeply  affectionate  father,  he  had  four  daughters  born  to  him, 
not  one  of  whom  survived  the  years  of  infancy.  Two  sons 
also  he  lost,  who  had  grown  to  man's  estate.  Thus  Thomas 
Crane  passed  from  youth  to  manhood,  and  from  manhood  to 
old  age,  —  an  active  business-man,  a  public-spirited  citizen,  a 
devoted  husband,  a  loving  and  a  sorrowing  father.  At  last, 
when  for  nearly  two  years  he  had  passed  the  age  allotted  to 


23 

man,  after  a  short  decline,  the  long,  well-spent,  successful  life 
drew  to  its  close.  On  the  first  day  of  April,  1875,  he  quietly- 
died  in  his  own  bed  and  among  his  own  people. 

Here  in  Ouincy  his  monument  stands  and  will  stand,  and 
hero  it  is  fit  and  proper  it  should  stand  ;  here,  if  he  could 
have  been  consulted,  he  would  most  have  wished  to  have  it 
stand.  It  stands  close  by  the  familiar  way  over  which,  with 
brothers  and  sisters,  he  walked  as  a  boy.  to  the  village  school 
close  by,  —  the  way  which,  a  young  man,  he  trod  as  he  went 
to  that  church  in  the  city  where  he  heard  God's  word  as  he 
needed  it,  —  the  way  which,  later,  when  he  returned  to  his 
birthplace  in  the  full  tide  of  mature  and  successful  life,  carried 
him  back  to  those  places  he  loved  so  well,  in  which  his  youth 
had  been  passed.  Quincy  was  to  him  always  a  haven  of  rest 
and  refreshment.  It  was  to  Quincy  that  he  liked  to  go  back 
from  the  noise  and  bustle  and  dust  of  the  great  city  ;  it  was 
in  Ouincy  that  he  would  most  have  wished  to  be  remembered. 
And  he  will  be  remembered  here.  His  name,  written  as  it  were 
in  water  where  he  lived  and  did  his  work,  will  now  long  be  in 
Ouincy  a  household  word.  And  it  is  right  also  that  it  should  be 
so  ;  for,  take  him  for  all  in  all,  Thomas  Crane  stands  easily  first 
to-day  among  the  many  children  Ouincy  has  contributed  to  the 
great  New  England  migration.  He  was  the  most  shining  ex- 
ample of  those  qualities  of  intelligence,  energy,  persistence,  hon- 
esty, temperance  and  God-fearing  morality  which  made  that 
New  England  migration  the  force  it  was  and  the  yet  greater 
force  it  is  destined  to  be.  As  the  most  shining  example  that  this 
town  produced,  it  is  therefore  fit  and  proper  that  his  monument, 
reared  by  pious  hands,  should  stand  here  by  the  roadside,  a 
conspicuous  memorial  for  coming  generations.  As  I  said  when 
I  began,  I  repeat  now,  —  it  is  more,  far  more,  than  a  monument 
to  an  individual.  There  is  a  sermon  to  the  young  in  its  every 
stone.  It  stands  as  a  reminder  of  those  sterling,  homely  quali- 
ties (qualities  which  all  possess,  and  yet  so  few  know  how  to 
utilize)  which  made  him  — -whose  name  the  building  bears  and 
whose  effigy,  carved  by  the  hand  of  genius,  looks  down  frOm  its 
walls —  the  man  he  was.  It  is  no  monument  of  human  great- 
ness, of  conquests  and  brilliant  deeds.      I-'or  the  mass  of  those 


24 

who  shall  enter  its  doors  it  is  better,  much  better  than  that. 
Not  all  men  can  be  great ;  and  the  ways  of  greatness  are  not 
the  ways  of  happiness.  We  can,  however,  all  be  temperate  ; 
we  can  be  industrious  ;  we  can  be  patient  and  persevering  ;  we 
can  cleave  to  that  which  is  true  and  honest  and  of  good  repute. 
All  this  Thomas  Crane  did  ;  and  because  he  did  it  he  achieved 
success  and  happiness  in  life,  and  his  monument  stands  here 
to-day,  —  the  monument  of  a  son  of  whom  his  birthplace  may 
well  be  proud,  and  vwhose  name  her  children  will  long  hold  in 
close  remembrance. 

To  each  civilization  there  belongs  its  special  modes  of  com- 
memorating the  dead.  As  you  pass  out  of  the  gate  of  San 
Sebastiano  at  Rome,  and  follow  the  famous  Appian  Way,  at  a 
distance  of  two  miles  or  so  from  the  city  walls  you  pass  the 
famous  tomb  of  Cecilia  Metella,  built  of  great  blocks  of  hewn 
stone,  securely  set  on  a  vast  and  solid  foundation.  The  dearly 
beloved  wife  of  a  great  Roman  patrician,  her  husband  erected 
that  sombre,  dreary  mausoleum  to  protect  forever  her  ashes, 
while  it  perpetuated  the  memory  of  her  name  and  of  her 
virtues.  There  it  has  stood  for  nearly  twenty  centuries  ;  and 
there  to-day  it  stands,  an  empty  memorial  of  a  buried  past, 
useful,  in  its  massive  ugliness,  not  even  to  the  dead. 

"  Thus  much  alone  we  know,  —  Metella  died, 
The  wealthiest  Roman's  wife  :  Behold  his  love  or  pride ! " 

Now  let  us  turn  to  what  Tennyson  has  called  "the  gray 
metropolis  of  the  North,"  the  ancient  city  of  Edinburgh. 
There,  close  to  where  was  Kirk-a-Fields,  may  be  seen  a  quaint 
quadrangular  building  standing  by  itself,  and  known  as  George 
Heriot's  Hospital.  It  is  a  school  made  familiar  to  all  through 
the  pages  of  Walter  Scott,  founded  by  the  goldsmith  of  James 
I.  of  England,  who  in  1603  followed  his  master  from  Edin- 
burgh to  London,  and  there  amassed  great  wealth.  Dying 
twenty  years  later,  his  thoughts  reverted  to  his  native  city;  and, 
after  making  full  provision  for  such  relatives  as  he  had,  he  left 
the  residue  of  his  fortune  to  found  a  school  in  which  the  chil- 
dren of  Edinburgh  freemen  should  be  brought  up  and  taught. 
For  two  centuries  and  a  half  George  Heriot's  Hospital  has 
made  its  founder's  name  a  household  word  in  the  city  of  his 
birth. 


o 


H 
m 

o 


CO 

o 


;5^s%v. 


25 

Here  in  New  England,  fortunately  for  us,  our  monuments  to 
the  noted  dead  —  the  memorials  erected  to  perpetuate  their 
memories  —  partake  rather  of  the  cheerful,  useful  character  of 
George  Heriot's  Hospital,  than  of  the  sterile  majesty  of  Cecilia's 
tomb.  Through  our  schools,  our  libraries,  our  churches  and  our 
college  halls  those  gone  before  are  remembered.  In  this  very 
region,  once  known  as  Braintree,  of  which  Ouincy  was  a  part 
until  eleven  years  before  Thomas  Crane  was  born,  —  in  this  very 
region,  now  divided  into  four  separate  towns,  there  are  to-day 
four  public  libraries,  three  seminary  endowments  and  a  church 
which  preserve  the  memories  of  their  founders,  or  of  those  in 
whose  name  they  werefounded.  "  Being  dead  he  yet  speaketh." 
Those  words  should  be  cut  deep  over  the  portal  of  each  of  these 
buildings.  The  mortal  remains  of  the  founders  —  those  of 
Thomas  Crane,  as  of  John  Adams  and  Sylvanus  Thayer  — 
moulder  in  the  dust.  No  monument,,  for  aught  we  know  or 
they  would  care,  protects  them,  and  long  since  they  have  dis- 
solved into  their  elements.     Their  work  goes  on. 

Neither  can  I  now  see  any  reason  why  this  building,  in  itself 
an  education  in  art,  should  not  stand  here  as  long  as  George 
Heriot's  Hospital  has  stood,  or  shall  stand,  in  Edinburgh,  The 
lapse  of  two  centuries  will  but  soften  and  lend  charm  to  its 
symmetry  ;  and  I  can  well  imagine,  that  when  the  twenty-first 
century  is  growing  old,  and  Ouincy,  a  city  in  itself,  shall  be 
part  of  the  greater  city  covering  all  the  shore  of  the  bay,  —  I 
can  well  imagine  that  then,  amid  a  wealth  and  population  and 
knowledge  and  art  such  as  we  cannot  imagine,  strangers  will 
pause  in  the  crowded  street  to  look  with  delight  at  the  quiet, 
vine-covered  Memorial  Hall,  standing  by  itself  against  a  back- 
ground of  trees.  They  will  ask  its  history  and  its  meaning  ; 
and  just  as  the  name  of  George  Heriot,  the  TCdinburgh  goUl- 
smith,  comes  to  us  with  a  remote,  far-away  echo,  —  laden  as  it 
were  with  memories  centuries  old,  —  so  I  fancy  may  then  the 
name  of  Thomas  Crane,  the  Quincy  stone-cutter,  come  to  them. 
It  may  speak  of  a  by-gone  civilization,  —  our  present,  then 
become  their  past,  unreal  and  quaint  and  primitive;  but  in 
Quincy,  as  in  Edinburgh,  the  name  of  the  benefactor  will  be 
familiar  in  the  mouths  of  the  children. 


NOTE. 


In  the  foregoing  address  I  say  that  it  was  never  my  good  fortune 
to  come  personally  in  contact  with  Mr,  Crane.  I  can  speak  of  him 
only  from  the  report  of  many  persons  who  knew  him  well  at  various 
periods  and  in  all  relations  of  life.  In  preparing  this  sketch  of 
him  and  of  what  he  did,  which  it  has  seemed  to  me  — from  its  con- 
nection with  the  man,  and  the  building  and  institution  which  bear 
his  name  —  may  have  an  enduring  interest,  I  have  intended  to  spare 
no  effort  to  describe  him  as  he  was.  I  could,  however,  only  see  Mr. 
Crane  as  others  reported  him,  and  was  unable  to  give  that  strong 
reality  to  my  presentment  which  can  be  derived  from  direct  observa- 
tion alone.  It  has  accordingly  seemed  to  me  desirable  that,  in  what 
is  intended  as  a  personal  memorial,  there  should  something  appear 
which  shall  record  the  impression  Mr.  Crane  made  upon  those  who 
had  met  him  in  his  family  and  daily  life.  In  the  following  letter 
he  is  described  as  it  was  not  in  my  power  to  describe  him. 

C.  F.  A.,  Jr. 

Boston,  17  May,  1882. 

Dear  Sir,  —  In  compliance  with  your  request,  I  am  glad  to  state  my 
impressions  of  the  personal  appearance,  life  and  character  of  the  late 
Thomas  Crane. 

Mr.  Crane  was  a  man  of  strong  and  distinct  presence.  His  figure  was 
muscular  and  well  set,  of  the  medium  height,  with  broad  shoulders. 

The  hair  and  beard,  at  the  time  of  my  acquaintance  with  him,  were 
white  and  abundant,  —  the  complexion  somewhat  florid. 

His  forehead  was  wide  and  high,  —  the  nose  aquiline;  the  eyes  were 
clear,  full  and  of  a  bluish  gray.  The  glance  was  keen,  yet  straightfor- 
ward and  sincere,  with  often  an  expression  of  the  kindest  humor. 

It  might  be  fairly  said  that  his  face  did  not  so  much  invite  confii- 
dence  as  inspire  it.  He  always  struck  me  as  possessing  real  solidity  of 
judgment. 

Although  relying  firmly  upon  his  own  conclusions,  and  very  persistent 
in  carrying  them  to  practical  results,  he  was  notably  modest  in  statement, 
—  indeed,  quiet  and  unobtrusive  in  all  his  ways. 

I  fancy  that  behind  his  shrewd  worldly  sense  there  was  a  deep  stratum 
of  sentiment.     He  looked  upon  the  foibles  of  his  fellow-men  with  a  mild 


27 

and  humorous  tolerance,  —  upon  tlieir  more  serious  faults  with  a  genuine 
and  helpful  sympathy.  I  doubt,  however,  if  he  had  sufficient  charity  for 
show  and  pretence. 

In  all  his  family  relations  he  was  most  tender  and  indulgent.  In 
political  opinion  a  Radical,  he  took  an  ardent  interest  in  public  affairs,  and 
gave  a  generous  support  to  the  government  during  the  war.  To  his 
church  he  was  devotedly  attached  and  constant  in  its  service. 

In  brief  he  was  a  New  England  man  of  the  best  sort  in  all  his  instincts 
and  aspirations,  tenderly  revering  his  old  home,  grateful  for  his  prosperity, 
upright,  candid  and  true,  of  a  clear-grained  common  sense,  industrious, 
doing  every  day  a  full  and  worthy  day's  work,  witii  no  consciousness  of 
great  excellence,  yet  thoroughly  self-respecting. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  lines  from  Wither's  "  Motto  "  may  well  be  said 
in  his  praise  :  — 

"  I  have  not  been  ashamed  to  confess 
My  lowest  fortunes,  or  the  kindnesses 
Of  poorest  men ;  nor  have  I  proud  been  made, 
By  any  favor  from  a  great  man  had. 
Nor  ever  for  preferment,  made  I  shows 
Of  what  I  was  not." 

Believe  me,  iS:c., 

ALBERT   B.   OTIS. 
Charles  Fr.\ncis  Ad.\ms,  Jr.,  Esq.,  Quincy. 


THE    MANTEL    AND    FIREPLACE. 


THE  CRANE  MEMORIAL  HALL. 


On  the  20th  of  February,  1880,  a  letter,  of  which  the  follow- 
ing is  a  copy,  was  received  by  the  selectmen  of  Ouincy :  — 

26  Broad  Street,  New  York, 
Feb.  19,  iSSo. 
To  the  Board  of  Selectmcft  of  the  T07011  of  Qidncy,  Mass. 

Gentlemen,  —  The  family  of  my  father,  the  late  Thomas  Crane 
of  New  York,  are  desirous  of  erecting  some  memorial  to  him. 
Though  long  a  resident  of  New  York,  my  father  always  retained  a 
strong  feeling  for  the  town  of  Quincy,  where  his  family  originated 
and  had  resided  for  over  a  century,  and  where  he  himself  passed 
the  earlier  portion  of  his  life.  After  much  deliberation,  therefore, 
his  family  have  thought  that  a  memorial  erected  to  him  in  Quincy 
would  be  both  more  appropriate  than  elsewhere,  and  most  in  con- 
sonance with  the  tender  feelings  and  cordial  interest  he  always 
manifested  therefor  in  his  lifetime,  and  which  he  constantly  ex- 
pressed to  us.  Prior  to  his  death,  in  1875,  he  had  made  annual 
visits  to  Quincy  for  many  years,  and  his  affection  for  his  native 
place  never  in  any  degree  lessened. 

His  family,  therefore,  desire  to  make,  through  you,  the  following 
proposition  to  the  town  of  Quincy  :  they  will  erect  an  edifice  to  his 
memory,  to  be  known  as  the  Crane  Memorial  Hall,  or  Library,  to 
be  held  in  trust  forever  by  the  town,  or  by  some  corporation  author- 
ized by  it,  for  the  free  use  of  the  town  as  a  Public  Librar)-  building. 
On  this  memorial  we  will  e.xpend  not  less  than  twenty  thousand 
dollars,  —  we  to  select  the  architect  (who  shall  be  one  of  standing 
and  ability),  the  architectural  design  and  the  details  of  material  and 
construction, — should  the  town,  on  its  part,  be  willing  to  dedicate 
a  site  therefor,  satisfactory  to  us,  in  some  convenient  and  central 
locality.      Of  the  few  such   sites  that  seem   suitnble   none  has  so 


30 

favorably  impressed  us  thus  far  as  the  plot  of  ground  formerly 
owned  by  the  late  Dr.  Ebenezer  Woodward,  and  now  in  possession 
of  his  nephew,  we  understand.  This  is  urged  simply  in  the  way  of 
suggestion. 

We  shall  be  obliged  if  you  will  bring  this  matter  to  the  notice  of 
the  citizens  of  Quincy  in  such  a  way  as  seems  to  you  best,  and 
at  your  earliest  convenience,  in  order  that,  if  this  proposition  be 
accepted,  we  may  proceed  at  once  to  consider  the  necessary  ques- 
tions of  detail  and  work  of  construction  at  an  early  day. 

I  remain,  &c., 

Albert  Crane. 

In  consequence  of  this  communication  the  following  article 
was  inserted  in  the  warrant  for  the  annual  town-meeting, 
issued  on  the  day  Mr.  Crane's  letter  was  received :  — 

Art.  23.  —  To  see  what  action  the  town  will  take  on  the  proposi- 
tion of  the  family  of  the  late  Thomas  Crane  in  relation  to  erecting 
a  memorial  building  for  use  as  a  PubHc  Library,  and  to  see  whether 
the  town  will  purchase  and  grade  a  suitable  piece  of  ground  as  a 
site  for  the  same. 

Subsequently,  at  the  adjourned  town-meeting  held  on  the 
22d  of  March,  the  committee  on  the  warrant,  to  which  the 
above  article  had  been  referred,  reported  the  following  votes, 
which  were  passed  :  — 

Voted,  That  the  selectmen  be  instructed  to  notify  the  family  of 
the  late  Thomas  Crane  that  the  town  of  Quincy  gratefully  accepts 
their  recent  munificent  proposal  to  erect  an  edifice  in  Quincy  to  his 
memory,  to  be  used  as  a  Public  Library  building ;  and  the  town 
clerk  is  instructed  to  enter  at  large  upon  the  town  records  the  letter 
of  Albert  Crane,  dated  February  19,  1880,  conveying  such  proposal, 
in  connection  with  this  vote. 

Voted,  That  said  building,  when  completed  and  conveyed  in  trust 
to  the  town,  shall  be  known  as  the  Crane  Memorial  Hall ;  the 
town  library  shall  be  deposited  in  it,  and  shall  be  thereafter  called 
the  Thomas  Crane  Library. 

Voted,  That  the  selectmen  and  the  trustees  of  the  Public  Library 
are  hereby  constituted  a  special  committee  to  confer  with  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Crane  family,  with  full  power  on  behalf  of  the 


town  to  arrange  all  details  respecting  said  Memorial  and  Library 
building,  and  to  procure  a  suitable  site  for  it,  which  shall  be  satis- 
factory to  them  and  to  the  Crane  family,  at  an  expense  to  the 
town  of  not  more  than  ten  thousand  dollars. 

Voted,  That  the  selectmen  are  instructed  to  apply  forthwith  to 
the  General  Court,  now  sitting,  for  an  act  incorporating  the  trustees 
of  the  Public  Library,  with  power  to  receive  and  hold  for  the  desig- 
nated purposes  the  proposed  hall,  the  land  under  and  around  it, 
and  any  other  property  which  may  be  hereafter  given  or  bequeathed 
to  the  town  for  Public  Library  purposes. 

Voted,  That  the  sum  of  ten  thousand  dollars,  or  so  much  thereof 
as  shall  be  required,  is  hereby  appropriated  for  the  purpose  of 
procuring  a  suitable  site  for  the  Crane  Memorial  Hall. 

In  accordance  with  the  foregoing  vote  the  Board  of  Select- 
men, Messrs  William  A.  Hodges,  William  N.  Eaton  and 
Charles  H.  Porter,  applied  to  the  Legislature  for  an  act  in- 
corporating the  trustees  of  the  Public  Library.  The  applica- 
tion was  favorably  considered  by  the  Legislature,  and,  under 
a  suspension  of  the  rules,  leave  to  bring  in  the  desired  act 
was  granted.  It  encountered  no  opposition,  and  appears  as 
chapter  202  of  the  acts  of  1880.  At  a  meeting  of  the  trustees 
of  the  Public  Library  held  on  the  4th  of  May,  1 880,  the  act  of 
incorporation  was  accepted,  and  the  new  Board  of  Trustees 
of  the  Thomas  Crane  Public  Library  organized. 

In  May  also,  in  compliance  with  the  preference  expressed 
in  the  letter  of  Mr.  Albert  Crane,  the  Woodward  lot  was 
purchased  by  the  town  as  a  site  for  the  proposed  Memorial 
Hall.  The  unexpired  term  for  which  the  estate  was  leased 
was  then  bought  up,  the  buildings  on  the  premises  were 
sold  at  auction,  and  before  the  close  of  the  summer  of  1880 
everything  was  in  readiness  to  begin  building. 

Mr.  H.  H.  Richardson  had  meanwhile  been  selected  by  the 
Crane  family  as  the  architect  of  the  proposed  edifice  ;  and,  in 
September,  after  careful  revision  by  the  trustees,  to  who.sc 
wishes  and  suggestions  the  most  considerate  attention  was 
shown  throughout,  the  plans  were  approved,  contracts  exe- 
cuted, and  ground  broken  for  the  foundations.  These  were 
laid  before  the  winter  brought  work  to  an  end.     As  a  young 


32 

'  man  Thomas  Crane  had  been  a  member  of  the  Rural  Lodge 
of  Free  and  Accepted  Masons  of  the  town  of  Quincy,  and 
accordingly  it  was  proposed  that  the  corner-stone  of  the 
Memorial  Hall  should  be  formally  laid  with  the  ceremonies  of 
the  Masonic  order.  This  was  done  on  the  22d  of  February, 
1 88 1.  The  day  was  exceptionally  fine,  several  inches  of  snow 
having  fallen  on  the  21st,  and  the  streets  of  the  town  were 
alive  with  sleighs.  The  sky  was  clear,  the  temperature 
moderate,  and  there  was  no  wind.  The  South  Shore  Com- 
mandery  of  Grand  Templars  arrived  at  about  one  o'clock,  and 
at  half-past  two  the  procession  formed  on  Hancock  Street,  in 
front  of  the  hall  of  Rural  Lodge,  and,  marching  thence  down 
Hancock  Street  to  Adams,  countermarched  to  the  site  of  the 
Memorial  Hall,  on'  Washington  Street.  The  corner-stone  was 
then  laid:  There  were  present  on  this  occasion  two  mem- 
bers of  the  Rural  Lodge,  Messrs.  Josiah  Baxter,  of  Quincy,  and 
Charles  Beck,  of  Milton,  who  had  joined  the  order  in  1825, 
the  same  year  in  which  Thomas  Crane  joined  it.  After  the 
exercises  at  the  Library  Building  the  procession  reformed  and 
marched  back  to  the  Masonic  Hall,  where  the  South  Shore 
Commandery,  the  Trustees  of  the  Public  Library  and  others 
were  entertained  by  the  Rural  Lodge  at  a  collation. 

It  had  been  intended  to  dedicate  the  hall  on  the  i8th  of 
October,  1881,  the  seventy-eighth  anniversary  of  the  birth  of 
Thomas  Crane.  The  original  plan  of  the  building,  however, 
had  undergone  considerable  development  while  the  work  of 
construction  was  going  on,  and,  as  the  time  approached,  it 
became  apparent  that  the  building  would  not  be  then  com- 
pleted. The  ceremony  of  dedication  was  consequently  post- 
poned, and  fixed  to  take  place  on  Decoration  Day,  in  the 
succeeding  spring.  At  the  annual  town-meeting  in  March, 
1882,  an  appropriation  was  made  to  meet  the  expenses  of  the 
day,  and  the  arrangement  of  details  was  referred  to  a  com- 
mittee consisting  of  the  Selectmen,  Messrs.  G.  H.  Field,  C.  A. 
Spear  and  E.  A.  Perkins,  and  the  Trustees  of  the  Thomas 
Crane  Library,  Messrs,  C.  F,  Adams,  Jr.,  Henry  Barker,  L.  W. 
Anderson,  C.  A  Foster,  H.  A,  Keith  and  F.  A,  Claflin,  The 
family  of  Mr,  Crane  had  some  months  before  formally  inti- 


33 

mated  a  wish,  through  the  Board  of  Selectmen,  that  Mr.  C.  F, 
Adams,  Jr.,  should  be  invited  to  prepare  a  memorial  address 
for  the  occasion,  which  invitation  had  been  accepted. 

There  was  more  delay  in  completing- the  work  on  the  hall 
than  had  been  anticipated,  owing  to  the  elaborate  finish  of 
the  interior;  and  the  grading  and  planting  the  grounds  not 
only  proved  a  heavier  and  more  expensive  work  than  it  was 
supposed  it  would  be,  but  it  was  delayed  by  a  long  continu- 
ance of  wet,  cold  weather.  The  spring,  indeed,  was  so  back- 
ward that  on  Decoration  Day,  May  30,  the  lilacs  were  not 
yet  in  bloom. 

Both  within  and  without  the  building  work  was  being 
pushed  actively  forward  until  the  evening  of  the  day  preced- 
ing the  dedication.  On  the  morning  of  the  30th,  however, 
everything  was  in  readiness.  The  weather  was  most  favor- 
able. The  foliage,  after  the  recent  heavy  rains,  was  hardly 
out,  but  leaves  and  blossoms  were  fresh  and  young,  the  streets 
were  free  from  dust,  and  the  day  was  clear  and  cool,  with  a 
light  westerly  wind.  Mrs.  Crane  and  her  sons  with  their 
party,  consisting  of  two  gentlemen  and  three  ladies,  had  come 
on  from  their  home  at  Stamford,  Connecticut,  on  the  29th,  and 
passed  Monday  night  at  the  Hotel  Vcndome  in  Boston.  They 
arrived  at  Ouincy  by  the  train  which  left  Boston  at  8.15 
Tuesday  morning,  and  were  met  at  the  station  by  the  chief 
marshal  of  the  day,  Colonel  A.  B.  Packard,  and  a  committee, 
and  taken  immediately  to  the  Memorial  Hall. 

The  committee  in  charge  had,  after  full  consideration,  de- 
cided to  make  the  dedication  a  purely  Ouincy  affair,  and  a 
verv  simple  one.  It  was  to  consist  of  a  reception  at  the  Hall 
by  the  Crane  family,  and  dedicatory  exercises  in  the  Stone 
Church  ;  wliilc  the  Masonic  bodies  again  kindly  gave  their  aid 
to  lend  imprcssivencss  to  the  occasion.  No  formal  invitations 
to  be  present  had  been  sent  to  oOicial  or  well-known  person- 
ages living  outside  the  town,  and  the  occasion  depended  for  ils 
success  on  the  desire,  which  was  known  to  exist  among  the 
people  of  Ouincy  generally,  to  personally  indicate  to  Mrs. 
Crane  and  her  sons  their  sense  of  the  benefaction  conferred 
upon  the  town. 


34 

The  reception  began  at  nine  o'clock,  and  was  the  distin- 
guishing feature  of  the  day.  The  interior  of  the  building 
had  during  the  morning  been  most  tastefully  decorated  with 
plants  and  flowers,  and  its  effect  was  very  striking  and 
attractive.  In  the  centre  of  the  inner  hall,  between  the 
alcoves,  was  a  large  portrait  of  Mr.  Crane,  adorned  with 
smilax  and  flowers.  Behind  this,  and  at  the  rear  of  the  hall, 
were  Mrs.  Crane  and  her  two  sons,  with  Mrs.  B.  B.  Newcome, 
Mr.  Crane's  sister,  near  them.  Mr.  C.  A.  Foster,  on  behalf 
of  the  committee,  introduced  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  as 
they  passed  by.  The  attendance  at  the  reception  was  very 
general,  and  the  kindly  feeling,  which  universally  prevailed, 
made  it  to  Mrs.  Crane  and  her  sons  a  gratifying  and  even 
a  touching  occasion.  Many  cotemporaries  and  schoolmates 
of  Mr.  Crane  were  present,  and  their  friendly  words  as  they 
passed  by  were  peculiarly  gratifying,  especially  to  Mrs.  Crane, 
who  subsequently  took  occasion  to  make  her  sense  of  it 
known.  The  affair  was  purely  informal.  There  was  no 
attempt  at  parade,  and  little  ceremony  ;  the  interior  of  the 
building,  though  well  filled,  was  at  no  time  unpleasantly 
crowded,  and  the  courtesy  and  consideration  shown  was 
marked  and  general. 

While  the  reception  was  taking  place  in  the  Memorial  Hall, 
the  Chief  Marshal  of  the  day.  Colonel  A.  B.  Packard,  with 
the  assistance  of  his  aids,  Messrs.  C.  A.  Rowland,  W.  G.  A. 
Pattee,  E.  P.  Waterhouse,  J.  H.  Dee,  W.  H.  H.  Rideout,  J.  O. 
Holden,  H.  M.  Federhen  and  J.  E.  Burns,  formed  the  proces- 
sion on  Hancock  Street,  and  it  was  set  in  motion  at  about  ten 
o'clock,  in  the  following  order  :  — 

Police. 

City  Band  of  Boston,  27  pieces. 

Chief  Marshal,  Colonel  A.  B.  Packard. 

Aids. 

South  Shore  Commandery,  K.  T., 

E.  C.  W.  S.  Wallace,  92  men. 

Rural  Lodge  of  F.  and  A.  Masons, 

W.  M.  Fred.  Jones,  129  men. 

Most  Worshipful  Grand  Lodge,  of  Massachusetts, 

M.  W.  G.  M.  Samuel  C  Lawrence. 


35 


Co.  D,  Independent  Fusilecrs  of  Boston, 

Captain  Snow,  63  men. 

Paul  Revere  Post  88,  G.  A.  R., 

I.  M.  Holt,  Commander,  60  men. 

Town  Officers. 

Orator,  Clergy  and  Invited  Guests. 

Union  Band  of  Quincy. 

Fire  Department, 

John  \V.  Hall,  Chief  Engineer,  155  men. 

Clan  McGregor, 
George  Farquharson,  Chieftain,  46  men. 

The  procession  moved  through  Hancock,  Elm  and  Wash- 
ington streets  to  the  Memorial  Hall,  on  the  steps  and  in  the 
portal  of  which  the  Masonic  ceremonies  took  place.  The  fol- 
lowing ofificers  of  the  Grand  Lodge  of  Massachusetts  were 
present,  and  had  formed  part  of  the  procession  under  escort  of 
Company  D.  Fifth  Regiment  Massachusetts  Volunteer  Militia, 
Captain  Snow,  who  had  considerately  offered  their  services 
for  the  occasion,  as,  later  in  the  day,  they  were  to  do  escort 
duty  in  the  decoration  exercises. 


M.  W.  Samuel  Crocker  Lawrence 
R.  W.  Edwin  Wright    .     .     . 
"       William  Babson      .     . 
"       Charles  C.  Spellman 
"      Wyzeman  Marshall    . 
"       Sereno  D.  Nickerson 
"       William  H.  H.  Soule 
W.  Rev,  Charles  H.  Leonard,  D.D., 

"   Frederick  D.  Ely   .     . 

"   Charles  W.  Slack  .     . 

"   Charles  Harris  .     .     . 

"   William  T,  R.  Marvin 

"  George  H.  Rhodes,  | 

"  James  Mills  J 

"   John  L.  Stevenson  .     . 

"   Z.  L.  Bicknell     .     .     . 

"    Darius  A.  Green   "^ 

"   James  M.  Gi.eason  \' 

"    Henry  J.  Parker     .     . 


Grand  Master. 
Deputy  Grand  Master. 
Senior  Grand  Warden. 
Junior  Grand  Warden. 
Grand  Treasurer. 
Recording  Grand  Secretary. 
D.D.G.  Master,  Dist.  No.  3. 
Grand  Chaplain. 
Grand  Marshal. 
Senior  Grand  Deacon. 
Junior  Grand  Deacon. 
Senior  Grand  Steward. 

Junior  Grand  Stewards. 

Grand  .Sword-Ilcarer. 
Grand  Standard-Bearer. 

Grand  I'ursuivants. 

Grand  Tyler. 


36 

PERMANENT   MEMBERS   PRESENT  : 

R.  W.  William  D.  Coolidge  .     .     .  Past  Grand  Master. 

"      Abraham  H.  Rowland,  Jr.  .  Past  Deputy  Grand  Master. 

"       Henry  Endicott     ....  Past  Grand  Warden. 

"       Edward  Avery "         "  " 

"       Henry  G.  Fay "         "  " 

Sir  William  H.  Kent,  R.  E.  Grand  Commander,  and  Sir 
Charles  C.  Hutchinson,  E.  Captain-General,  of  the  Grand 
Commandery  of  Massachusetts  and  Rhode  Island,  added  dig- 
nity to  the  occasion  by  joining  in  the  escort. 

Order  being  secured,  W.  Fred.  L.  Jones,  Master  of  Rural 
Lodge,  announced  to  the  M.W.  Grand  Master  that  all  neces- 
sary preparations  Jiad  been  made,  and  the  Brethren  now 
waited  his  pleasure.  The  Weber  Quartette  opened  the  ex- 
ercises by  singing  the  following 

ANTHEM. 

Lead,  kindly  Light,  amid  th'  encircling  gloom, 

Lead  Thou  me  on  ; 
The  night  is  dark,  and  I  am  far  from  home, 

Lead  Thou  me  on. 
Keep  Thou  my  feet ;  I  do  not  ask  to  see 
The  distant  scene,  —  one  step  enough  for  me. 

I  was  not  ever  thus,  nor  prayed  that  Thou 

Should'st  lead  me  on  : 
I  loved  to  choose  and  see  my  path  ;  but  now 

Lead  thou  me  on. 
I  loved  the  garish  day,  and,  spite  of  fears, 
Pride  ruled  my  will :  remember  not  past  years. 

So  long  Thy  power  hath  blest  me,  sure  it  still 

Will  lead  me  on 
O'er  moor  and  fen,  o'er  crag  and  torrent,  till 

The  night  is  gone. 
And,  with  the  morn,  those  angel  faces  smile 
Which  I  have  loved  long  since,  and  lost  awhile. 

The  Architect,  Mr.  Richardson,  then  addressed  the  Grand 
Master,  stating  that  the  labors  of  the  operative  workmen 
had  at  length  reached  a  conclusion,  —  that  the  building  was 


37 

now  ready  for  the  use  and  occupation  of  those  for  whose 
benefit  it  had  been  planned  and  completed  with  such  munifi- 
cent liberality.  It  only  remained  to  consecrate  it  to  the  ser- 
vice for  which  it  was  designed,  by  the  mystic  rites  of  that 
Ancient  and  Honorable  Fraternity  to  whom,  from  time  im- 
memorial, such  duties  have  been  assigned.  Thanking  thg 
Grand  Master  for  the  promptness  with  which  he  had  re- 
sponded to  the  request  of  the  Committee  of  Arrangements, 
the  Architect  invited  him  to  proceed  with  the  ceremony  of 
dedication. 

The  ^I.W.  Grand  Master  replied  as  follows  :  — 

Agreeably  to  the  request  of  the  Trustees,  and  following  the 
practice  of  Master  Masons,  who  in  ancient  times  designed,  con- 
structed and  dedicated  public  buildings  to  be  used  for  the  pur- 
poses of  charity,  education,  art  and  religion,  we  will  now  witli 
pleasure  proceed  to  dedicate  this  Memorial  Hall  in  accordance  with 
the  olden  customs  of  the  Masonic  Craft. 

Who  can  forecast  the  influence  for  good  that  will  flow  from  the 
establishment  of  this  Public  Library  Building,  in  fostering  the  intel- 
ligence and  morality  of  this  community  —  an  influence  limited 
neither  to  age,  sex,  condition  nor  time  ! 

In  consecrating  a  work  of  such  interest  and  importance  let  us, 
according  to  the  usual  Masonic  custom,  unite  with  our  Grand 
Chaplain  in  invoking  the  blessing  of  Deity. 

The  Rev.  CiiARLKs  H.  Leonard,  D.D.,  offered  the 

OPENING    PRAYER. 

God  be  merciful  unto  us  and  bless  us:  and  cause  liis  face  to 
shine  upon  us,  that  Thy  way  may  be  known  upon  earth,  Thy  saving 
health  among  all  nations.  We  thank  Thee  for  this  d:iy  which  thou 
hast  given  us,  for  this  circumstance  of  our  lives,  and  for  the  occa- 
sion which  has  called  us  together.  We  beseech  Tliee  to  grant  unto 
us  the  consenting  mind  and  the  consenting  heart.  Mercifully  with 
Thy  favor  bless  us,  and  all  the  services  and  ceremonies  of  tliis  liuur, 
and  so  direct  us  by  Thy  good  Spirit  tliai  all  llial  we  do  at  this 
present  may  be  done  in  view,  not  only  of  our  need  and  the  good  of 
this  people,  but  to  Thy  honor.  For  thine  is  the  kingdom  and  the 
power  and  the  glory  forever.     Amni. 


38 

The  ceremony  of  dedication  then  proceeded  as  follows  :  — 

Grand  Master.  Worshipful  Brother  Grand  Marshal,  have  you 
distributed  the  implements  of  Operativ.e  Masonry  to  the  proper 
officers  for  the  requisite  examination  of  the  building  ? 

Grand  Marshal.  I  have,  Most  Worshipful,  and  the  examina- 
tion has  been  made. 

Grand  Master.  Right  Worshipful  Deputy  Grand  Master,  what 
is  the  proper  jewel  of  your  office  ? 

Deputy  Grand  Master.     The  Square. 

Grand  Master.     Have  you  applied  the  Square  ? 

Deputy  Grand  Master.  I  have,  Most  Worshipful,  and  the 
Craftsmen  have  done  their  duty. 

Grand  Master.  Right  Worshipful  Senior  Grand  Warden,  what 
is  the  proper  jewel  of  your  office  ? 

Senior  Grand  Warden.     The  Level. 

Grand  Master.     Have  you  applied  the  Level  ? 

Senior  Grand  Warden.  I  have,  Most  Worshipful,  and  the 
Craftsmen  have  done  their  duty. 

Grand  Master.  Right  Worshipful  Junior  Grand  Warden,  what 
is  the  proper  jewel  of  your  office  ? 

Junior  Grand  Warden.     The  Plumb. 

Grand  Master.     Have  you  applied  the  Plumb  ? 

Junior  Grand  Warden.  I  have.  Most  Worshipful,  and  the 
Craftsmen  have  done  their  duty. 

The  Grand  Master,  striking  the  wall  of  the  building  three 
times  with  the  gavel,  said  :  — 

Found  square,  level  and  plumb,  —  well  made,  well  proved, 
true  and  trusty, — built  with  good  skill  and  for  noble  ends.  The 
Public  Library  Building,  Thomas  Crane  Memorial  Hall,  has  been 
erected  by  the  Craftsmen  in  accordance  with  the  fundamental  rules 
of  the  Masonic  Fraternity :  with  Wisdom  in  its  design,  Strength  in 
its  construction,  and  Beauty  in  its  completion. 

The  Grand  Marshal  presented  the  vessel  of  Corn  to  the 
Junior  Grand  Warden  who  poured  the  Corn,  saying:  — 

Corn  is  the  emblem  of  nourishment.  May  this  community  re- 
ceive out  of  this  building,  more  and  more  abundantly,  that  wisdom 
which  shall  nourish  and  culture  their  souls  to  every  good  and 
perfect  woj-k,  zvord  and  thought. 


39 

The  following  was  then  sung  by  the  Weber  Quartette :  — 

Thou  of  light  the  great  creator, 

In  our  deepest  darkness  rise  ; 
Scatter  all  the  night  of  nature, 

Pour  the  day  upon  our  eyes. 
Still  we  wait  for  thine  appearing. 

Life  and  joy  thy  beams  impart. 
Chasing  all  our  fears,  and  cheering 

Every  meek  and  contrite  heart. 

The  Grand  Marshal  presented  the  cup  of  Wine  to  the 
Senior  Grand  Warden,  who  poured  the  Wine,  saying:  — 

Libations  of  Wine  were  employed  in  ancient  consecrations  as 
types  of  refreshment.  May  the  learning,  literature  and  song  that 
shall  be  gathered  within  these  walls  refresh  and  invigorate  the 
virtues  of  this  people  till  they  shall  have  favor  with  God. 

The  following  was  then  sung  by  the  Weber  Quartette:  — 

Guide  me,  O  thou  great  Jehovah  ! 

Pilgrim  through  this  barren  land  ; 
I  am  weak,  but  Thou  art  mighty. 

Hold  me  with  Thy  powerful  hand. 
Bread  of  heaven ! 

Feed  me  till  I  want  no  more. 

Open  now  the  crystal  fountain. 

Whence  the  healing  waters  flow  ; 
Let  the  fiery,  cloudy  pillar 

Lead  me  all  my  journey  through. 
Strong  Deliverer  ! 

15e  Thou  still  my  strength  and  shield. 

The  Grand  Marshal  presented  the  cup  of  Oil  to  the 
Deputy  Grand  Master,  who  poured  the  Oil,  saying:  — 

Oil  is  the  symbol  of  joy  and  gladness.  May  tiiis  noblo  memorial 
edifice  be  to  all  the  citizens  of  this  town  as  a  fountain  of  wisdom, 
inspiring  them  with  a  love  of  righteousness,  so  that  it  may  lie  said 
of  them,  as  of  those  in  olden  time,  "therefore  God,  thy  God,  hath 
anointed  tiiee  with  tlie  oil  of  gladness  above  thy  fellows." 


40 
The  Weber  Quartette  followed  with  this 

CHANT. 

Arise  !  Shine !  for  tliy  light  is  come, 

And  the  glory  of  the  Lord  is  risen  upon  thee. 

Lift  up  thine  eyes  around  about  thee  and  see  : 

All  they  gather  themselves  together, 

They  come  tg  thee.    Our  gates  shall  be  open  continually; 

They  shall  not  shut  day  nor  night ; 

But  the  Lord  shall  be  unto  thee  an  everlasting  light, 

And  thy  God,  thy  glory.     Amen. 

The  Grand  Chaplain  offered  the  following  invocation  and 
prayer  of  consecration :  — 

INVOCATION. 

May  Corn,  Wine  and  Oil,  and  all  the  necessaries  of  life,  abound 
among  men  throughout  the  world  ;  and  that  this  building  may  long 
stand  a  fit  memorial  of  virtue,  and  a  centre  of  fruitful  influence,  let 
us  pray. 

PRAYER   OF  CONSECRATION. 

O  God,  our  wisdom  and  our  strength,  in  Whom  alone  all  our 
works  are  rightly  begun  and  worthily  ended,  grant  Thy  presence 
now  that  we  come  to  give  to  Thee  this  house  which  our  hands  have 
builded,  and  beseech  Thee  to  bless  it  to  the  great  uses  of  human 
enlightenment.  We  rejoice  in  the  strength  and  beauty  of  the  com- 
pleted structure,  —  that  according  to  the  plan  of  designer  and  the 
skill  of  workmen,  without  hurt  or  hindrance,  the  good  work  has 
gone  on  to  these  results  and  to  this  auspicious  day. 

We  bless  Thee  for  that  wise  beneficence  whose  large  and  loving 
wish  has  been  so  carried  out  by  filial  faithfulness  and  affection. 
We  thank  Thee  for  this  fit  offering  of  children  to  the  memory  of  a 
father,  and  that  henceforward  it  will  stand  the  monument  alike  of 
bis  foresight  and  generosity,  and  of  their  grateful  love.  We  beseech 
Thee  to  accept  this  gift  of  their  hearts  in  the  name  of  what  is  most 
strong  in  duty  and  most  tender  in  affection,  and  for  the  sake  of  a 
life  lived  in  the  full  measure  and  meaning  of  simple  truth  and  quiet 
goodness. 

Hear  our  prayer,  O  Thou  who  dost  give  direction  to  all  thought 
and  action,  to  the  end  that  this  structure  may  be  consecrated  in 


41 

honor  of  that  measureless  spirit  of  knowledge  and  learning  which 
here  will  invite  the  faculties  of  the  humblest  child,  and  in  memory 
of  the  world's  great  teachers,  the  prophets  and  apostles  of  truth 
and  right  in  all  ages,  whose  wisdom  has  been  embodied  for  our 
reading,  and  bequeathed  to  us  in  good  books.  Here,  in  glad  pro- 
cession, year  after  year,  generation  by  generation,  may  the  young 
come  as  to  a  living  spring  and  freely  drink.  Here  may  maturity 
find  the  rich  treasures  which  are  yielded  to  man's  most  studious 
hours,  —  the  stimulus  of  noble  minds,  and  the  unfailing  delight  of 
contact  with  gifted  souls.  Here  may  age  find  solace,  in  commu- 
nion through  the  printed  page,  with  friends  unseen,  and  yet  long 
known  and  deeply  loved,  —  the  sustaining  tranquillity  of  life's 
ripening  days. 

God  of  our  fathers,  we  beseech  Thee  to  bless  this  people,  the 
inhabitants  of  this  ancient  town,  who  this  day  accept  this  building 
and  all  its  belongings  as  their  entrusted  care.  In  view  of  a  history 
made  illustrious  by  revered  names  of  statesmen  and  scholars,  in 
view  of  a  great  inheritance  of  piety  and  patriotism,  of  mighty  faith 
and  loyal  sacrifice,  may  they,  the  worthy  sons  and  daughters  of  a 
worthy  history,  of  ancestral  privilege  and  incentive,  w'orthily  praise 
Thee,  honoring  Thy  name.  Thy  ways  in  the  past,  and  Thy  present 
faithfulness,  in  that  Thou  dost  bless  them  tliis  day  in  abundant 
good,  and  in  this  most  gracious  promise  of  favor  for  themselves 
and  those  who  will  come  after  them. 

O  Thou  who  hast  been  favorable  unto  our  land  and  brought  it 
through  many  and  great  distresses,  we  would  remember  before 
Thee,  on  this  anniversary  day,  that  our  special  rejoicings  are 
blended  with  the  nation's  larger  gratitude  towards  her  princely 
sons  and  heroes.  Help  us,  therefore,  to  rise  to  some  ampler  view 
of  our  relations  and  our  duties,  so  that,  while  we  dedicate  this 
house  to  Thee  and  the  best  uses  and  capabilities  of  the  advancing 
years,  we  may  give  ourselves  anew  to  Thee  in  a  more  intelligent 
citizenship,  and  a  wiser  devotion  to  public  and  private  good. 

O  God,  hear  these  our  supplications  and  thanksgivings,  and  so 
bless  us  that  we  shall  be  shaped  as  living  stones,  at  the  last  to  be 
fitted  and  built  into  Tliy  spiritual  temple;  and  unto  Thy  great  name 
be  glory  and  honor  and  power, — through  Jesus  Christ,  forever. 
Amen. 

The  M.  W.  Grand  Master  delivered  the  following  ad- 
dress :  — 

6 


42 


ADDRESS    OF   THE   GRAND   MASTER,  SAMUEL   CROCKER 

LAWRENCE. 

In  compliance  with  the  official  invitation  extended  to  the  Grand 
Lodge  of  Masons  of  Massachusetts,  we  have  come  here  to  dedicate 
this  building  to  the  noble  uses  for  which  it  has  been  erected. 
Although  the  Grand  Lodge  has  from  time  to  time,  in  conformity 
with  the  ancient  usages  of  our  Fraternity,  dedicated  many  of  the 
great  public  edifices  of  the  Commonwealth,  designed  for  the  use 
of  the  State,  and  for  religious,  charitable  and  monumental  pur- 
poses, I  am  not  aware  that  its  services  have  ever  been  called  into 
requisition  in  the  dedication  of  a  building  of  this  character.  If 
such  be  the  fact,  I  feel  no  hesitation  in  establishing  a  precedent 
which  is  in  entire  harmony  with  the  spirit  and  aims  of  our  Institu- 
tion in  originating  and  maintaining  this  ancient  ceremonial  of  dedi- 
cation ;  and  the  Grand  Lodge  has  found  it  a  grateful  duty  to  lend 
its  presence,  through  its  official  representatives,  to  assist  in  doing 
honor  to  this  interesting  occasion. 

We  fully  recognize  the  claim  which  this  historic  town  has  upon 
the  respect  and  gratitude  of  every  American  citizen.  She  has, 
from  generation  to  generation,  been  the  happy  mother  of  sons  to 
whom  the  graces  of  high  mtellect  and  public  virtue  have  been 
heritable,  and  the  brightest  pages  of  our  national  annals  are  illumi- 
nated with  their  names. 

"  To  save  the  State,  to  mould  the  fate 

Of  empire  o'er  these  broadening  lands, — 
What  nobler  task  could  Honor  ask 
For  faithful  hearts,  for  trusty  hands  ?  " 

As  the  representatives  of  an  institution,  in  which,  from  pre-Revo- 
lutionary  times  to  the  present,  patriotism  and  loyalty  have  been 
traditional,  we  may  well  feel  an  interest  in  every  evidence  of  pro- 
gress and  prosperity  in  this  typical  New  England  municipality. 
And  we  may  say,  too,  that  our  presence  here  as  members  of  the 
great  Masonic  Fraternity,  invited  to  lend  the  sanction  of  its  rites 
to  the  dedication  of  this  building,  is  not  without  its  significance 
and  its  moral.  Scarcely  half  a  century  has  elapsed  since  a  storm 
of  popular  odium  and  suspicion  beat  against  the  institution  we  re- 
present. Many  eminent  men,  honestly  misapprehending  the  char- 
acter and  purposes  of  Masonry,  engaged  in  the  warfare  against  it, 
and  one  of  the  most  distinguished  leaders  was   a  venerable   and 


43 

venerated  citizen  of  Quincy.  While  we  recall  these  facts  simply  as 
interesting  incidents  of  history,  and  without  the  slightest  shadow 
of  displeasure  or  resentment,  I  may  be  allowed  to  give  public 
expression  to  the  gratification  with  which  the  Fraternity  regards  the 
great  and  salutary  change  which  has  come  over  public  sentiment, 
consequent  upon  the  better  understanding  of  the  nature  and  ob- 
jects of  the  Masonic  institution.  The  kindly  spirit  which  pervades 
the  Brotherhood,  the  benign  social  and  moral  influences  which 
emanate  from  it,  and  the  high  respectability  of  its  growing  mem- 
bership, are  now  universally  recognized,  and  the  public  has  ceased 
to  dread  indefinable  dangers  from  the  Ancient  and  Honorable 
Fraternity  of  Free  and  Accepted  Masons. 

It  is  proper  that  we  should  take  part  in  the  celebration  of  this 
event,  —  the  completion  of  an  enterprise  which  owed  its  concep- 
tion to  the  generous  public  spirit  of  a  member  of  our  order,  and 
which  the  faithful  affection  of  his  family  has  brought  to  a  success- 
ful conclusion.  We  heartily  congratulate  the  people  of  Quincy  that 
they  have  come  into  possession  of  such  an  inheritance.  Here  they 
will  have  a  fitting  depository  for  the  wisdom  of  all  ages,  as  it  is 
made  imperishable  in  books.  The  value  of  a  well-selected  library, 
open  to  the  use  of  all  the  people,  cannot  be  adequately  measured. 
While  it  is  of  the  greatest  utility  as  an  adjunct  to  our  system  of 
popular  education,  it  does  something  more  than  to  fit  men  to  grap- 
ple successfully  with  the  practical  work  of  life,  so  far  as  the  ends 
and  aims  are  purely  material.  It  is  the  great  instrument  for  train- 
ing men  to  those  habits  of  intelligent  inquiry  and  reHection  which 
bring  them  to  an  acquaintance  with  the  principles  which  underlie 
the  science  of  life,  without  which  we  have  no  safe  guidance,  and 
are  fit  only  to  become  the  dupes  of  sophists,  charlatans  antl  dema- 
gogues. It  is  the  instrument  also  for  purifying  the  imagination 
and  refining  the  aspirations  of  the  soul,  until  man  becomes  not 
only  filled  with  wisdom  and  clothed  with  strength,  but  crowned 
with  moral  beauty.  We  cannot  too  profoundly  recognize  this  fact, 
the  commonplace  statement  of  which  is  in  danger  of  becoming  tire- 
some to  the  public  ear,  —  that  a  republic  founded  upon  intelligence 
and  virtue  is  an  ideally  perfect  government,  but  that  without  such 
a  basis  it  is  a  delusion  and  a  mockery. 

Therefore  while  we  felicitate  the  people  of  Quincy  upon  tiie  pos- 
session of  this  noble  edifice,  and  the  library  which  it  will  contain, 
it  is  our  ftirvent  prayer  that  the  full  advantages  which  can  be  de- 
rived from  such  an  institution  may  inure  to  this  communily.     I  beg 


44 

you  to  call  to  mind  the  words  of  the  philosopher  whose  recent 
death  we  justly  regard  as  a  national  calamity. 

"  Consider,"  says  Emerson,  "  what  you  have  in  the  smallest 
chosen  library.  A  company  of  the  wisest  and  wittiest  men  that 
could  be  picked  out  of  all  civil  countries,  in  a  thousand  years,  have 
set  in  best  order  the  results  of  their  learniAg  and  wisdom.  The 
men  themselves  were  hid  and  inaccessible,  solitary,  impatient  of 
interruption,  fenced  by  etiquette ;  but  the  thought  which  they  did 
not  uncover  to  their  bosom  friend  is  here  written  out  in  transparent 
words  to  us,  the  strangers  of  another  age." 

Approach,  then,  this  temple,  dedicated  to  the  intellectual  and 
moral  improvement  of  man,  with  gratitude  for  the  inestimable  privi- 
leges it  generously  offers  to  the  poorest  citizen  among  you.  In 
the  serene  atmosphere  of  study  and  contemplation  may  your  souls 
be  penetrated  with  the  lessons  of  wisdom  and  virtue  which  the 
sages  of  all  times  have  left  for  your  guidance  and  instruction  ;  and 
under  such  gracious  influences  may  you  be  trained  to  habits  of 
right  thinking  and  right  living,  to  social  kindness  and  brotherly 
love,  to  a  philanthropy  which  shall  be  as  broad  as  humanity  itself, 
and  to  all  the  virtues  which  exalt  the  standard  of  a  true  American 
citizenship. 

The  Grand  Marshal  made  the  following 

PROCLAMATION. 

In  the  name  of  the  M.W.  Grand  Lodge  of  Masons  in  Massachu- 
setts, I  now  proclaim  that  Crane  Memorial  Hall,  a  public  library 
building,  erected  at  the  desire  and  from  the  wealth  of  Thomas 
Crane,  a  venerated  Masonic  Brother,  with  the  free  and  generous 
consent  of  his  family,  has  this  day  been  found  square,  level  and 
plumb,  true  and  trusty,  and  has  been  consecrated  according  to  the 
ancient  forms  of  the  Masonic  Craft.  This  proclamation  is  made 
from  the  East,  the  West,  the  South :  once  [trumpet],  hoice  [trumpet 
twice],  thrice  [trumpet  thrice].  All  interested  will  take  due  notice 
thereof. 

The  Grand  Chaplain  offered  the 

CLOSING    PRAYER. 

O  God,  Thou  who  art  the  source  and  the  consummation  of  our 
life,  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  all  our  undertakings,  vouchsafe 


45 

to  us  now  Thy  divine  benediction.  Accept  and  bless  our  offerings. 
Preserve  to  us  the  memory  of  this  hour.  Cheer  us  more  and  more 
by  the  promise  of  increasing  good  to  flow  from  widespread  schools 
and  all  institutions  established  to  promote  the  common  good. 
Forbid  that  we  should  ever  be  unfaithful  to  our  opportunities  ;  but 
may  such  devotion  mark  our  history  that  a  manifold  intelligence 
and  righteousness  shall  prevail  throughout  all  our  borders  ;  that  so 
Thy  kingdom  may  come  and  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in 
heaven.     Amen. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  ceremonies  of  dedication  the 
column  was  again  formed  and  marched  to  the  junction  of 
Adams  and  Hancock  streets,  where  it  was  countermarched 
and  returned  to  the  Stone  Church.  This,  though  the  largest 
public  building  in  seating-capacity  in  the  town,  was  too  small 
to  well  accommodate  all  who  desired  to  listen  to  the  dedica- 
tory exercises.  Mrs.  Crane  and  her  party  occupied  pews  on 
the  left-hand  side  of  the  central  aisle  ;  opposite  to  her,  and 
in  his  own  pew,  was  the  Hon.  Charles  Francis  Adams,  with 
Mrs.  Adams  and  members  of  their  family. 

The  exercises  in  the  church  occupied  almost  exactly  one 
hour.  They  were  opened  by  the  singing  by  the  Weber 
Quartette  of  the  following  :  — 

Hear  our  prayer ;  grant  us  Thy  peace  we  pray  ; 

Guard,  oh  guard  us,  Lord,  guard  us  by  night  and  day; 

In  Thee,  O  Lord,  we  place  our  trust, 

Thou  who  art  merciful  and  just. 

Bend  from  Thy  throne  on  high  ; 

Hear,  oh  hear  our  prayer,  oh  hear  our  prayer. 

Prayer  was  then  offered  by  the  Rev.  Edwakd  Norton,  pas- 
tor of  the  Congregational  Church  of  Ouincy.  The  following 
was  then  chanted  by  the  Weber  Quartette  :  — 

CHANT. 

Remember  now  thy  Creator  in  the  days  of  thy  youtli,  while  (he  evil 
days  come  not,  nor  the  years  draw  nigh  when  thou  siialt  say,  I  have  no 
pleasure  in  them  ; 

While  the  sun,  or  the  light,  or  tlie  moon,  or  the  stars  be  not  darkened, 
nor  the  clouds  return  alter  llie  rain  : 


46 

In  the  day  when  the  keepers  of  the  house  shall  tremble,  and  the  strong 
men  shall  bow  themselves,  and  the  grinders  shall  cease  because  they  are 
few,  and  those  that  look  out  of  the  windows  shall  be  darkened, 

And  the  doors  shall  be  shut  in  the  streets,  when  the  sound  of  the  grind- 
ing is  low,  and  he  shall  rise  up  at  the  voice  of  the  l^rd,  and  all  the  daugh- 
ters of  music  shall  be  brought  low  ; 

Also  when  they  shall  be  afraid  of  that  which  is  high,  and  fears  shall  be 
in  the  way,  and  the  almond  tree  shall  flourish,  and  the  grasshopper  shall 
be  a  burden,  and  desire  shall  fail :  because  man  goeth  to  his  long  home, 
and  the  mourners  go  about  the  streets  : 

Or  ever  the  silver  cord  is  loosed,  or  the  golden  bowl  is  broken,  or  the 
pitcher  be  broken  at  the  fountain,  or  the  wheel  be  broken  at  the  cistern. 

Then  shall  the  dust  return  to  the  earth  as  it  was  :  and  the  spirit  shall 
return  unto  God  who  gave  it. 

In  accordance  with  the  programme  the  Chief  Marshal,  who, 
together  with  Mr.  Albert  Crane,  and  Messrs.  Adams  and 
Foster  of  the  trustees,  occupied  a  small  platform  in  front  of 
the  pulpit,  then  introduced  Mr.  Crane,  as  the  representative 
of  his  father's  family,  who  presented  to  Mr.  Adams,  as  chair- 
man of  the  trustees,  the  key  of  the  Memorial  Hall.  In  doing 
so  he  spoke  as  follows  :  — 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Trustees  of  the  Tho77ias  Crane  Public  Library, 
Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  — 

In  behalf  of  the  family  of  the  late  Thomas  Crane,  I  have  the 
honor  to  say  that  the  Library  is  finished,  and  that  we  have  come 
here  to-day  to  dedicate  and  formally  transfer  it  to  the  town  of 
Quincy,  as  a  memorial  of  my  father.  We  have  been  especially 
gratified  by  the  prompt  acceptance  of  our  proposition  to  build,  by 
the  generous  unification  of  all  your  collections  of  books  with  the 
structure  which  will  now  preserve  them,  and  the  co-operation  of 
the  committee  throughout.  And  now  that  the  structure  is  ready 
for  occupancy  and  use,  I  hereby  formally  deliver  to  you,  as  Trustees 
of  the  Thomas  Crane  Public  Library,  and  as  authorized  to  accept  it, 
—  by  this  key  as  a  symbol  of  control  and  ownership,  —  to  have  and 
keep  forever  for  the  purposes  specified  in  the  act  of  incorporation, 
the  full  possession  of  this  building,  tenderly  consecrated  to  the 
memory  of  Thomas  Crane,  by  the  affections  of  his  family,  and 
doubly  consecrated  in  their  hearts  by  the  generous  sympathy  of  the 
citizens  of  his  native  town. 


47 

To  these  words  Mr.  Adams,  in  receiving  the  key,  responded 
as  follows  :  — 

On  behalf  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the  Thomas  Crane  Library 
of  Quincy,  it  devolves  upon  me  to  accept  from  you,  Sir,  as  repre- 
senting the  family  of  your  late  father,  the  transfer  of  the  Crane 
Memorial  Hall.  In  doing  so  I  am  sure  I  voice  the  common  senti- 
ment of  all  the  inhabitants  of  Quincy  when  I  say  that  this  noble 
benefaction  comes  to  us  under  circumstances  making  it  peculiarly 
grateful.  Quincy  has  heretofore  not  been  unaccustomed  to  receive 
benefactions  at  the  hands  of  her  children.  They  have,  however, 
come  to  her  from  those  who  have  remained  her  children  to  the 
end , —  a  part  of  the  common  family,  as  it  were.  In  the  present 
case  this  is  not  so.  Your  father  left  this  town,  his  native  place, 
more  than  half  a  century  ago,  and  never  again  became  a  resident 
in  it.  His  children  were  born  in  another  State,  and  no  ties  ever 
bound  them  to  Quincy.  When,  however,  you  looked  about  for  a 
pli^ce  where  you  should  erect  a  memorial  to  him,  you  chose  this  his 
native  town. 

The  Crane  Memorial  Hall,  therefore,  must  always  have  a  double 
significance,  —  a  significance  to  us  as  well  as  to  you.  As  a  monu- 
ment of  conjugal  and  filial  devotion  it  will  not  fail  in  its  purpose. 
To  us  of  Quincy,  however,  it  is  more  than  that.  It  is  a  standing 
reminder  of  that  affection,  —  that  strong  bond  of  feeling  which  those 
who  have  gone  forth  from  New  England,  from  Massachusetts  and 
from  Quincy  still  retain  for  their  native  place.  It  comes  to  us  as  a 
gift  unexpected  and  from  afar.  It  will  be  prized  and  preserved 
accordingly. 

On  behalf  of  the  Trustees  of  the  Library,  on  behalf  of  the  people 
of  Quincy,  who,  one  and  all,  will  profit  by  the  gift,  I  accept  the 
transfer. 

At  the  close  of  his  response,  Mr.  Adams  resumed  his  seat. 
After  a  brief  pause  he  rose  again  and  proceeded  to  deliver  the 
Memorial  Address.  He  spoke  without  notes,  and,  as  the  exer- 
cises in  the  church  had  begun  later  than  was  intended,  the 
Address  was  in  delivery  much  compressed,  occupying  but  a 
few  minutes  over  half  an  hour.  It  was  listened  to  with  pro- 
found attention,  and  at  the  close  was  warmly  ajiplauded. 

When  Mr.  Adams  closed  and  had  resumed  his  scat,  the 
following  was  chanted  by  the  Weber  (Quartette:  — 


48 

Though  long  years  have  passed  away, 

And  joyous  summer  left  me, 
Though  autumn  sings  her  plaintive  lay, 

Yet  art  thou  still  dear  to  me. 
Though  far  away,  thy  voice  is  ever  near  to  me, 
Absence  but  makes  thee  dearer  to  me  ; 
No  time  can  change  my  love  for  thee. 

A  Benediction  was  then  pronounced  by  the  Rev.  D.  M. 
Wilson,  pastor  of  the  church,  and  the  public  dedicatory  exer- 
cises were  brought  to  a  close.  The  audience  was  dismissed 
at  half-past  twelve  o'clock. 

Later  a  collation  was  furnished  the  fire  department  at  the 
church  building  on  Hancock  Street,  which  had  the  day  before 
been  vacated  by  the  Library  officials  ;  the  members  of  the 
Grand  Army  dined  at  their  hall  ;  and  the  Masonic  Lodges 
marched  to  Faxon  Hall,  on  Canal  Street,  where  they  partook 
of  an  entertainment.  Immediately  after  the  exercises  at  the 
church  Mrs.  Crane  and  her  party  were  driven  to  the  residence 
of  Mr.  C.  F.  Adams,  Jr.,  whose  guests  they  were  during  the 
remainder  of  the  day.  They  returned  to  Boston  in  the  after- 
noon, and  to  Stamford  the  next  morning. 


321308 


dM 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  UBRARt 


* 


